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LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


LOVE NEVER 
F A I L E T H 

An Emotion touched by Moralities 


CARNEGIE SIMPSON 



1902 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


NEW YORK 


CHICAGO 


TORONTO 



Copyright, 1902 , by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
(April) 


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As this sketch 

done chiefly during a summer vacation y 
touches on the “ two things in Life 
whose secrets are supremely worth 
knowing the writer dedicates it to 
an authority on both — his Wife 







* 









CONTENTS 




PART I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A SHORT OPENING MALE QUARTETTE 11 

II. A DISAPPOINTING MAN ... 15 

III. THE FOSTER-MOTHER .... 23 

IV. WHICH ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 32 

V. CUPID'S LONGBOW 44 

VI. DEALING WITH BOTH LIFE AND 

DEATH 51 

VII. IN WHICH ARNOLD AND MARGARET 

UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER . . 61 

VIII. THE INSTINCT OF PARTING . . 72 

IX. MARGARET COMES HOME ... 80 

X. LOVE'S FOOL 89 

XI. “ MILITIAE SPECIES AMOR EST ” . 98 

XII. IN THE COLONEL'S LIBRARY . . 108 

XIII. IN THE GARDEN 119 

XIV. “ AS LOVE SHOULD LEAD ME, OR AS 

DUTY URGED" 127 


7 


8 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XV. SHOWING THIS STORY HAS NO 

HEROINE 

XVI. MISS CORYN nAS HER REVENGE . 

XVII. THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF A 

POEM 

XVIII. IN WHICH ANOTHER LETTER IS 
BURNT, AND THE COLONEL 
APOLOGIZES 

PART II 

A YEAR AFTER: THE STORY ENDS WITH 

MUSIC 

ENVOY ...... 


PAGE 

136 

141 

153 

162 

181 

206 


PART ONE 


■ * 




















* 









T A SHORT OPENING 
1 MALE QUARTETTE 

T HE white dress disappeared with a 
final flash into the wood, and the 
three men who had been watching 
from the veranda turned to meet the youth 
who at that moment entered the room. It 
was in the H6tel Splendid at Rosenwald. 

“Well?” said the oldest of the group — 
a man of military aspect 

The newcomer looked slightly foolish. 

“ She said she was going to read,” he 
explained. 

“ And you submitted to be counted less 
than a book,” replied the other. 

“ I said, Make me your book. I thought it 
was rather a neat thing to say myself.” 

“ Brilliant! But she wouldn’t let you? ” 
“ Rather she did let you,” broke in a clean- 


IX 


i2 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


shaven man with an eyeglass. “ But she 
said, If you’ll be the book I’ll be the paper- 
knife, or words to that effect, and — cut you.” 

The rejected smiled weakly, but said 
nothing. 

“ Now, my dear boy,” the same speaker 
went on, “ I shall avenge you. Tell me what 
she was going to read, and I’ll review it.” 

“ There were two. One was the Badmin- 
ton on racing, and the other a volume of 
Browning, Para — something, I think.” 

The reviewer gave a low whistle. 

“ Well,” he mused, stroking his chin affec- 
tionately, “ she’s a mixture. Most of them 
are, but this is a new blend. What are you 
going to make of a girl whose choice mental 
food is a sandwich of the Badminton on 
racing and Browning’s Paracelsus f I give 
her up.” 

“ Don’t you think,” put in the youngest 
of the company in a high, drawling voice, 
“ that you may just as well give them all up 
while you’re at it? I can’t understand,” he 
continued in a deliberate, didactic way, 
“ why you will keep on talking of women as 


A MALE QUARTETTE 13 


if they were cognizable phenomena. 
Haven’t I often told you they aren’t? A 
woman’s like the North Pole ” 

“ Fixed? ” said the critic doubtfully. “ I 
thought varium et mutdbile ” 

“ Not fixed, but ” 

“ Frigid, perhaps,” interrupted the critic 
again. 

“ She was — beastly cold,” said the re- 
jected. 

“ If you will only wait,” continued the 
young sage : “ I don’t mean frigid either, 
but undiscovered. So why don’t you stop 
talking about them scientifically and wor- 
ship them afar off? ” 

“ It’s safer afar off,” the rejected ad- 
mitted. 

“ Sometimes it’s inevitable. They may 
wish to read.” 

It was said very sweetly but hastily. A 
reply was forthcoming, but the critic 
stepped in to preserve the peace. 

61 Now, don’t quarrel,” he said. “ You 
know it puts a man awfully on the other 
fellow’s level.” 


i 4 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


Each looked doubtfully at the other, won- 
dering which of them should take offence, 
and the speaker went on at once. 

“ Be good Agnostics and join the faith of 
the Inscrutable Feminine. Cecil here,” he 
added, indicating the sage, “is admirably 
adapted to be our leader in any form of ig- 
norance; while as for you, Harrald,” turn- 
ing to the would-be cavalier, “ you’ve lost a 
companion, but you’ve found a cult. What 
do you say, Major? ” 

The military-looking man was listening 
to all this with a contemptuous impatience. 

“ I think you men are talking yourselves 
silly,” he said, rising, “ and what you all 
want is a good two hours’ tramp.” 

The conversation collapsed, and the four 
went out. 


H a disappointing 

MAN 

M ISS CROTHERS was one of those 
persons whose natures demand 
conflicting kinds of happiness and 
their will has never finally decided between 
them. That she had brought out with her 
both a Badminton and a Browning was 
really only natural. For she was indeed 
two girls, and the two were very distinct. 
They had never quite arranged matters be- 
tween them. She was either wholly the 
gay enjoyer of life or the serious student of 
the spirit. 

“ I am like the House of Commons,” she 
once said : “ one party is in power, but only 
by a narrow majority that a snap-vote may 
overturn any day. Now you” — she was 
speaking to her friend and good angel, Mrs. 
Walmer — “ are like the Lords, the Opposi- 
tion has never a chance there.” 

The good angel was a Liberal and pro- 
15 


16 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


tested. But the point of the metaphor was 
just in both cases. 

That afternoon, in the pine-wood, there 
was a full-dress debate in the Commons, and 
a critical division was impending. In other 
words, Margaret Crothers, who had opened 
neither the Badminton nor the Browning, 
was thinking about Mr. Hamilton. 

It was not apparent why he should have 
raised any serious moral issues within her, 
or even why she should be thinking of him 
at all. He had come to the hotel only two 
days before, and she had spoken a few 
words with him only once. But there are 
persons who, without any expression of it 
on their part, suggest to us a certain view of 
life and type of character, and to Margaret 
this newcomer had somehow come to stand 
for that aspect of life — the severer, more 
strenuous and nobler, to which the greater 
part of her own life was a stranger. She 
had really no sufficient basis for this idea. 
She knew nothing about the man to justify 
it. He was a Scotsman and reticent. His 
chief companions in the hotel seemed to be 


A DISAPPOINTING MAN 17 

children. But many people go largely by 
intuitions; they do not reach their truest 
conclusions by collecting evidence. So it 
is a mistake to press them for reasons, to 
call them to defend with logic positions 
which were not reached by logic. Suffice 
it that it was the person of Arnold Hamil- 
ton which on this afternoon stirred this girl 
into a more serious survey of her life than 
she had known for many a day. She re- 
turned to the hotel with the feeling that it 
would do her good to get to know this Mr. 
Hamilton a little. 

An opportunity presented itself next 
morning. They met on the terrace and ex- 
changed greetings. She began to talk of the 
place and the people. His replies were con- 
ventional. The conversation, indeed, threat- 
ened to come to a stick. Margaret had the 
uncomfortable feeling that it was her fault, 
which was not the case, and that he must 
be thinking her stupid, which was also a 
mistake, for he was hardly thinking of her 
at all. 

“ There was a painting of that glacier in 


1 8 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


the Academy last year,” she said at last, for 
something to say. “ Did you see it? ” 

“ Yes, I saw that. What did you think 
of it? ” 

She was surprised by his suddenly lead- 
ing in the conversation, and replied, rather 
feebly, “ I thought it was a fine subject.” 

“ Does the subject matter so very much? ” 
he asked, with something of an awakening 
interest. “ Is it not the only thing that 
doesn’t matter much? What did you think 
of the picture? ” 

“ I’m afraid I am not a judge, ’’she an- 
swered ; “ but — well, it certainly did not 
convey to me anything of the severe, lonely 
feeling that the place itself does.” 

“ Then for you at least it was a failure, 
whether through the artist’s fault or your 
own, I don’t say. For the aim of art is to 
make us feel, isn’t it? ” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” she assented; and 
then added interrogatively, “ as that of 
science is to make us know? ” 

“ Exactly,” he replied, glancing at her 
with a swift look of interest. 


A DISAPPOINTING MAN 19 


“ But I don’t quite see yet how you mean 
that the subject doesn’t matter in art,” she 
said. 

“ Because,” he answered, “ what tells 
upon your feeling, moves you, touches you, 
is the form of the thing — the qualities of 
simplicity, truth, harmony, and so on in the 
treatment of it.” 

" I perceive you are an art critic,” said 
Margaret. 

With rather a bitter little laugh he re- 
plied, “ You know what the art critics 
are.” 

“ I know what Disraeli said they were, if 
that is what you mean: people that had 
failed in art. Then I don’t believe you are 
an art critic.” 

“ Lots of people,” said Arnold, in reply, 
“ said that before Disraeli. Dryden, for in- 
stance.” 

“ I hate people,” said Margaret, “ who 
are always finding out that everything has 
been said or done before.” 

“ Oh, I like them.” 

“ It makes nothing worth while doing.” 


20 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ And so consoles one for not doing any- 
thing.” 

“ Do you think people who don’t do any- 
thing should be consoled?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ I say they should be punished.” 

“ They are punished,” said Arnold rather 
gravely, “ and as life’s punishments are 
usually unjust, they should be consoled too.” 

Margaret was perturbed. She had begun 
to talk to Mr. Hamilton with the vague idea 
that it would do her good, and the con- 
versation began by promising that. Now 
it seemed she was called on to do him good. 
She felt somebody should do something for 
morality. She would probably have an- 
nounced that “ life is real ” and “ life is 
earnest” if Arnold had not almost imme- 
diately gone on. She really blushed as she 
thought of her escape, and her color was 
charming. 

“ But I beg your pardon, Miss Crothers,” 
he went on, “ for talking so sententiously. 
People don’t come to Rosenwald for this 
kind of thing. It makes us quite solemn 


A DISAPPOINTING MAN 21 


and unhappy. See how gaily every one else 
is chatting. That’s because they’re only 
gossiping or flirting.” 

Margaret began to feel a little indignant 
that he should speak to her in this cynical, 
trivial way. And yet men had often said 
very light things to Miss Crothers, and she 
had permitted it; why, then, should she 
resent the same thing in this man? She did 
not ask herself why, but she did resent it. 
Now how unjust this woman was! Arnold 
had never pretended that he was going to 
do her good. If she was deceived about him, 
it was not he who had done it. But simply 
because she had built up in her own mind 
the idea that he would be a good influence, 
she now began to regard him as a kind of 
hypocrite. In vain did his sex plead for 
bare justice. “ My dear lady,” said the mas- 
culine world in the person of this disap- 
pointing man, “ you must take us as we are, 
not as you have imagined we are. Half our 
delight in you is in surprises. We never 
call them disappointments or take offence at 
them ; we call them new interests and are 


22 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


refreshed by them.” The pleading was in 
vain. Margaret felt defrauded and almost 
angry. 

The position was relieved by a party of 
friends coming up to arrange with Miss 
Crothers about a picnic on the following 
day. They invited Arnold also, and, being 
unable to give an excuse, he accepted. Mar- 
garet hardly knew whether or not she was 
glad that she would meet him again to-mor- 
row. She was rather sorry when she heard 
him invited, and yet was not sorry when he 
accepted the invitation. 


m THE 

FOSTER-MOTHER 

T HE next morning was gloriously fine. 
Margaret was down early, and she 
took a stroll before breakfast round 
the hotel grounds. As she was walking, she 
thought she heard, behind her, footsteps 
that suddenly stopped and turned another 
way : looking round, she saw Arnold hurry- 
ing out of the grounds by a side-path. She 
felt sure he had deliberately avoided her, 
and it surprised and perplexed her. Her 
surprise and perplexity were increased 
when, on returning to the hotel, she found 
that he had left a note for the lady who had 
invited him to the picnic, apologizing for 
his absence on the ground of his being 
sick. Margaret felt there was a mystery 
here. She did not mention that she had 
seen him go off, because she felt that he had 
not wished to be seen; but the matter 
brooded in her mind, and, as a matter of 


23 


24 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

fact, Miss Crothers thought far oftener that 
day of Mr. Hamilton absent than probably 
she would have done if he had been present. 
And she still strangely preserved, despite 
the disappointment of yesterday’s conversa- 
tion, the same idea of him that his disci- 
plined face and restrained manner had first 
suggested to her. That it has been shown 
to be incorrect is by no means to every one 
reason enough for giving up a preconceived 
idea. 

Arnold, who did not know that Margaret 
had observed him as he set out, walked 
some miles up a valley and then lay down 
on the hillside. His mood was certainly not 
the brave and noble one that she imagined. 
But she did not know the facts. 

Briefly, the facts were these. Arnold 
Hamilton was a Scottish artist. His father 
had been in law, but had got into various 
complications, and when he died he left his 
widow and two children — a girl and a boy 
— not too well provided for. The mother, 
who was of French birth, and from whom 
her son inherited his artistic capacities, 


THE FOSTER-MOTHER 25 

brought up her children bravely for several 
years, and then she too died, and the sister 
and brother found themselves alone. They 
lived together a life of simplicity, but of 
the most real happiness. The sister’s clever- 
ness — though it was really less her clever- 
ness than her loving self-denial — carried 
their life through without her brother being 
obliged to break up his day by earning 
money, and so he was left free to give him- 
self to the thing he was really made for. By 
degrees his painting began to establish itself 
with the public, and his artistic future 
seemed about to prove a bright one. They 
moved to London and opened a new chapter 
of happiness. But life is a game in which 
we never hold the trumps. In one month, 
as the spring was budding and his hopes 
were gladdest, death came again and left 
him quite alone, and an illness threatened 
him that made it very doubtful if he could 
continue to be a painter. 

He went abroad to seek rest and change, 
and, in the course of his journeys, had come 
to Rosenwald. At first he had tried se- 


26 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


eluded and unfrequented places, but he 
found the loneliness unbearable. Anything 
was better than brooding. A sorrow that 
calls to action often strengthens; a sorrow 
that has no outlet but thought easily weak- 
ens. Arnold was in no small danger of be- 
coming morbid and bitter if left to himself, 
and, conscious of this, he had chosen the 
fashionable H6tel Splendid. It was better 
for him at least to keep in sight of the world 
of happy life, even though his spirit was 
too deeply bruised to permit him to be more 
than a spectator of it all. He felt like an 
outsider at the feast, allowed from some 
recess to watch the scene in which he could 
not share. Indeed, he hardly watched it. 
No man could be more keenly interested in 
life’s movement than he had been; now it 
seemed to have lost, its reality — to have be- 
come but a pageant-play upon a stage. 

On the morning of the picnic, this sense 
of his defeat and isolation so weighed upon 
Arnold’s spirit that he felt he could not 
possibly enter into any social gaiety; so, 
leaving his apology, he set out alone. He 


THE FOSTER-MOTHER 27 


had not lain long on the hillside before, to 
his alarm, and surprise, he saw the party, 
which he had thought was going by another 
road, driving up the valley. Arnold had to 
hasten behind some large boulders to escape 
notice. The action made him feel ridiculous 
and humiliated, and more than ever a cast- 
away from life. The carriages rattled past. 
He heard the gay voices as he crouched 
like a hunted rabbit. The company dis- 
appeared round a corner, and it seemed as 
if life indeed were passing, leaving him be- 
hind. He fed his melancholy by repeating 
to himself several verses of the “ Stanzas 
from the Grand Chartreuse.” The banners 
passed; the bugles ceased. 

Arnold spent the whole of that day among 
the hills. Picking up a frugal lunch at a 
hut, he roamed from place to place till 
gradually he felt as if his very being had 
become but a part of nature’s life. In the 
late afternoon he was lying again upon a 
hillside, and his whole spirit seemed ab- 
sorbed in the great calm, ageless existence 
about him. Before him stood the Alpine 


a8 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


monarchs in their unimpassioned suprem- 
acy, the eternal snow lay in unassailable 
purity against the unflecked sky, the long 
valley beneath led the eye to a restful ha.ze 
of blue. Not a sound broke the silence but 
the occasional tinkle of a far cow-bell. 
Nothing seemed to move except the air, 
which Simmered in the heat. Time itself 
seemed to be standing still. 

To the sensitive soul of the young artist 
Nature spoke like a mother to a child. She 
soothed his murmurs ; she hushed his bitter- 
ness; she gave to his loneliness her com- 
panionship. He was comforted, and lay in 
a sort of passive quietude of spirit, not 
happy, but no longer in revolt. 

“ Mortals fail ” — he seemed not so much 
to think it as receive it — “ because in their 
inexperience and enthusiasm they aspire 
too high. Nature endures because she does 
not fight against her limitations. Learn of 
Nature this day moderation and endur- 
ance.” 

And thus he was soothed — but not satis- 
fied. 


THE FOSTER-MOTHER 29 


Arnold was not a poet, but he had the 
habit at times of weaving his impressions 
into verse as he turned them over in his 
mind. That evening, while the sun sank 
low in the west and the shadows grew long 
on the grass, his mood found expression in 
these lines, which he said over to himself 
as he walked back down the valley — 

His heart aflame with hidden fires 
Of hope and fear, of love and hate, 

The throbbing of untold desires 
And yearnings inarticulate — 

Man fills the air with prayers and sighs. 
Till, like a mother grave and mild. 

Nature, that neither strives nor cries, 

Speaks gently to the restless child. 

The patience of the standing hills, 

The silence of the lonely sky, 

The cheerfulness of running rills. 

And flowers that bloom, content to die — 

From these she draws her soothing balm 
The fevered heart of man to cure, 

Bidding him imitate her calm 
And, rather than aspire, endure. 


3 o LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

And often, wearying to rest, 

He will accept the sedative, 

And lay himself upon her (breast, 

And try to be content to live 

A life of moderated cheer. 

With temperate desires and aims, 

Finding some satisfactions here, 

And making these his only claims. 

But still his restless spirit sighs, 

Refusing to be reconciled, 

For, while in Nature’s arms he lies, 

He knows he is not Nature’s child. 

As Arnold entered the hotel, the irre- 
pressible intimations of the Beyond and In- 
finite that lie in the tenderness and the 
glory of a superb sunset awoke in his spirit 
the higher yearnings, and therefore the 
deeper sadness. Nature seemed to belie her 
own message: here was more than modera- 
tion, than endurance. But soon “ the sun 
sank and all the ways were darkened.” Sud- 
denly it fell down behind the hills ; in a few 
minutes the snow-peaks lost their illusive 
rosy glow and a deathly whiteness took its 
place ; the radiance of the sky began to fade, 


THE FOSTER-MOTHER 31 


the light and warmth of the world to de- 
part. As it grew darker and colder the 
great hills loomed out with the same mes- 
sage that they had borne in the heat and 
glory of the day. 


J\/ WHICH ALL BUT 
I V ENDS IN TRAGEDY 


^TTT HAT a number of people were 
Y Y away from lunch to-day,” said 
Mrs. Jay to her friend, Mrs. 
Poole, as the two sat down in a corner of 
the salon for their usual after-dinner gossip. 
“ The tables were quite empty.” 

“ Yes, both my neighbors were off.” 

“ Who are your neighbors, Mrs. Poole? 
The Italian Count is one, isn’t he? What 
a fine-looking man he is.” 

“ Yes,” replied Mrs. Poole, “ and so in- 
teresting. We had a long talk yesterday 
about the Italian royal family. He seems 
to know them all. I think he has some high 
position at court.” 

As a matter of fact he was a large ex- 
porter of macaroni. 

“ And who’s on the other side? ” said 
Mrs. Jay. 


32 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 33 

“ That serious young man who came at 
the beginning of the week. He’s a Scots- 
man, I find. He is so serious-looking that 
I thought he must be a minister, but he 
isn’t.” 

“ A minister wears a white tie,” said Mrs. 
Jay. She spoke decidedly, for she had seen 
Mr. Barrie’s plays. 

“ Oh, they don’t all do that ; though some 
of them wear more than a tie, and you can’t 
tell them from real clergymen. I remem- 
ber,” continued Mrs. Poole, “ my poor hus- 
band taking bad once at Interbergen, and 
I asked what I thought was a clergyman to 
visit him, and it turned out he was a min- 
ister from a place Peebles. Mr. Poole was 
very bad after he found it out — you know 
he’s a churchwarden. It’s very confusing.” 

“ It is indeed,” replied Mrs. Jay sym- 
pathetically. “ I wonder if it’s legal.” 

“ I told that young Scotsman about it,” 
said Mrs. Poole. “ I wanted to see if he 
was bigoted.” 

“ And what did he say? ” 

“ Oh, he’s not bigoted. He said it would 


34 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

have saved confusion if the Scotch minister 
had worn black kilts.” 

“ Was he making fun? ” 

“ Oh no; why should he? ” 

“ I never heard of any one wearing black 
kilts.” 

“ Well, neither have I ; but I suppose 
they must wear them in the Highlands at 
funerals.” 

The conversation dribbled on. 

It had, however, one result. Miss Croth- 
ers was sitting writing at a table just at 
hand, and could not help hearing what was 
said. The reference to Scotland reminded 
her that her friend, Mrs. Walmer, was visit- 
ing in Edinburgh, and induced her to write 
a letter to her there. 

She had hardly finished when some friends 
came and asked her to join in a dance which 
had been got up in the hall. After a little 
hesitation she consented, and went. She 
was fond of dancing, and, having once be- 
gun, danced all through the evening, stirred 
to the liveliest animation by the strains of 
an Hungarian band. Margaret had had too 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 35 

much admiration given her in her life to be 
affected by the homage of the miscellaneous 
company at a Swiss hotel, and she had, 
moreover, a touch of pride in her which 
saved her from vanity; so she hardly noticed 
even her closest observers. One of these 
was the youth whose escort she had rejected 
some days before when she went out to read 
her Badminton and Browning. He had 
never ceased to press his suit, and to-night 
was more than usually sentimental because 
he had drunk at dinner a whole bottle of 
champagne. Another observer she could 
hardly have seen. Attracted from his room 
by the cadence and crash of the Hungarian 
music, Arnold came down and stood in a 
corner of a balcony that ran round the 
hall. The old feeling of being apart from 
the feast of life that naturally recurred to 
him as from the recess he looked down on 
the bright scene below, was forced to give 
place to the feeling of sheer pleasure as his 
eyes followed the most brilliant figure in 
the dance. He watched Margaret with no 
sentimental emotion, but simply, as one 


36 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

could not help doing, with lively admiration 
and a keen sense of the charm of color, 
form, and movement. He waited for a con- 
siderable time, and then went out into the 
moonlight for a stroll. 

It was getting late when Margaret, pleas- 
antly fatigued with the evening’s exertions, 
retired to the veranda for a breath of cooler 
air. She was standing alone, looking out on 
the moonlit snow-peaks, when suddenly a 
man’s voice behind her said — 

“ How lovely you looked to-night.” 

She turned and perceived the irrepressible 
Harrald. She made him no answer. 

“ I knew I should find you here,” he con- 
tinued, and then added, with a vapid smile, 
“ Come a walk ! ” 

“ Certainly not, Mr. Harrald. Would you 
kindly allow me to go in? ” 

She tried to pass him, but he placed him- 
self in the way and attempted to seize her 
hand. She retreated to the other side, and 
he followed her. 

A man’s figure suddenlv appeared out of 
the darkness at one of the large windows of 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 37 

the veranda. Margaret recognized it, and 
being in real straits, called out quickly — 

“ Come in, please.” 

Arnold entered from the garden. It was 
an unpleasant situation, but there was no 
use disguising it. 

“ Mr. Hamilton,” said Margaret, “ would 
you do me the kindness to give me your arm 
and take me back to the hall ? ” 

Arnold took in the state of things. He 
went up to Harrald, who was getting ex- 
cited and was trying to pin Miss Crothers 
in a corner, took him by the shoulders and 
very emphatically planted him down in a 
chair. He then gave Miss Crothers his 
arm, and they went to the door into the 
house. It would not open. Harrald, who 
had locked it on entering and taken the 
key, giggled with delight. Arnold and Mar- 
garet had therefore to go out through the 
door by which he had entered, and so found 
themselves in the garden. 

She thanked him. 

“ The moonlight on the glacier is won- 
derful,” he replied, and released her arm. 


38 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

A commoner man would have shown his 
appreciation of the privilege by retaining 
it; he showed far more by the way he re- 
signed it. They went forward a few steps 
to see the glacier, and stood several minutes 
with only an occasional remark. 

A clock struck. She half turned to go 
in. 

“ If I were an Irishman,” he said, “ I 
should say the night is the best part of the 
day.” 

“ But,” she said, with a laugh, “ I was 
hearing to-night that you are a Scotsman, 
but not bigoted.” He looked interrogation ; 
she explained the allusion, and then asked : 
“ But now, tell me, what is a not-bigoted 
Scotsman? ” 

“ A not-bigoted Scotsman,” he replied. 
“Well, I should describe a not-bigoted 
Scotsman as one whose hero was J ohn Knox 
and his heroine Queen Mary.” 

“ Would not that be rather a man without 
convictions? ” 

“ Oh, a man without convictions would 
appreciate neither; a bigoted man under- 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 39 


stands only one of them, but a non-bigoted 
man would appreciate and understand both. 
Don’t you agree with me? But now, may 
I ask you a question? What is a non- 
bigoted Englishwoman ? ” 

“ A conundrum. Give it up.” 

“ One who studies, turn about, Badmin- 
ton and Browning,” he replied, looking at 
the glacier. 

She bit her lip, but somehow could not 
feel exactly angry. She wished she could 
think of something clever to say, but it 
wouldn’t come. He looked round in a mo- 
ment and their eyes met. There was an 
instant’s uncertainty, and then they both 
laughed. He had not laughed for weeks. 
It was wine to him. 

The laughter seemed a new introduction 
between them. Without any further per- 
sonal allusions they broke into ready talk. 
He was going off next day for a short walk- 
ing-tour. She knew part of the route. A 
difference of opinion arose about some point 
in it — whether the way kept a certain wood 
on the right or the left. They debated it, 


40 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


and finally made a bet of a box of chocolates 
upon it. Then they went into the hotel. 
They bade each other good-night very 
friendlily. Arnold went to the reading-room. 
Margaret went upstairs, took her yet un- 
closed letter to Mrs. Walmer, and added a 
postscript to it : “ By the way, there is a 
man in the hotel here who lives, or used to 
live, in Edinburgh — a Mr. Arnold Hamil- 
ton. Perhaps your friends know him.” ^ 

Meanwhile, Mr. Eric Harrald had sought 
to drown his ire, and at last made his way 
to the smoking-room, where were the other 
friends who obliged in the opening chapter. 
He rang the electric bell, and sat down and 
called loudly for a cognac. He waited in 
an abstracted mood till it was brought, and 
then sat and gazed at the glass with por- 
tentous solemnity. The other men said 
nothing. At last Harrald murmured, half 
to himself — 

“ My last drink.” 

“ Well, Pm relieved to hear it,” said the 
critic, “ for you seem to have had your al- 
lowance for to-day.” 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 41 


“ I shall be dead tomorrow/’ said Har- 
rald. “ My mind is made up.” And he 
smiled meaningly, and took a revolver out 
of his pocket. 

“ Now, don’t do that,” said the critic ; “ it’s 
so beastly messy. Jump into a crevasse; 
far cleaner.” He spoke quietly and with 
considerable wisdom, for Harrald might 
have done anything that moment. 

“ And far cheaper,” added the sage. 
“ Saves any funeral.” He spoke only flip- 
pantly. He was enjoying a supper of pdtd- 
de-foie-gras. 

“ Don’t be a little fool,” said the Major, 
and he suddenly took away the weapon. 
“ Go to bed.” 

“ To bed ! ” replied Harrald, with infinite 
scorn. “ Do you really think I could sleep? 
You don’t know what it is to love. Love’s 
a rare bird, I can tell you — as rare a bird 
as edelweiss. I tell you, miserable idiots 
of ignoraut asses, it’s only when a man’s 
been through the waters and comes out 
scorched ” 

“ My dear fellow,” said the critic, “ you’re 


42 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


hardly equal at this moment to metaphor. 
You’d better ” 

“ You don’t understand me, that’s it,” 
replied Harrald severely. “ It is your intel- 
lect that is incapable of appreciating my 
argument. I’ll tell you men something,” 
he went on, less combatively. “ I’ll tell you 
why people like me. It’s because they don’t 
understand me. Do you know what lam?” 
He paused, and then added in a whisper, 
“ I’m a myshtery.” 

Then he called for another cognac. The 
Major stepped in. He and the critic con- 
ducted the mystery to his bed, and left him 
snoring. 

“ A confounded shame of you men,” said 
the sage, who refused to leave his supper. 
“ I’m sorry for the poor beggar ; he was 
enjoying himself.” 

“ You should be sorry for his mother,” 
said that honest moralist, the Major. 

“ You’re a teetotaller, I suppose,” said 
the sage sneeringly. 

“ I’m no more a teetotaller than you are,” 
returned the other ; “ but,” he added hotly, 


ALL BUT ENDS IN TRAGEDY 43 


“ I know the difference better than you do 
between a man enjoying himself and degrad- 
ing himself.” 

The sage felt it safer to seek the cooler 
atmosphere of philosophy. 

“ Well, after all,” he continued, prepar- 
ing to take a large bite, “ is life worth 
living? ” 

“ That you will find,” said the critic, 
looking doubtfully at the pdte-de-foie-gras, 
“ depends largely on the liver ! ” 


V CUPID’S 
LONGBOW 

W HEN Miss Crothers came down- 
stairs next morning the portier 
gave her a parcel which he said 
had been sent from a shop. She found it 
to be a box of chocolates, containing also a 
card with these lines — 

I find yon right about that wood, 

And so myself your willing debtor; 

And herewith make my wager good. 

But not, I trust, a lady-better. 

The portier informed her that Mr. Hamil- 
ton had gone off before breakfast. 

The next few days at Rosenwald passed 
dully. The weather was wretched. The 
mist hung low on the hills, and the rain 
plashed persistently on the ungrateful 
ground. There was nothing to do, and the 
whole day long in which to do it. The 
men stood at the windows smoking; the 
women sat in the verandas and read novels. 
44 


CUPID’S LONGBOW 


45 


The depression was deepened by the mourn- 
ful singing of ditties in the drawing-room 
by an elderly young ladv with a guitar, and 
the efforts of a funny man from Blackpool, 
who recited comic selections to a patient 
audience. The daily post-bag was the only 
gift of Providence. 

One day it brought a letter for Margaret 
from Mrs. Walmer. In answer to the post- 
script of her friend’s last letter, Mrs. Wal- 
mer, who happened to be staying with 
people who knew a good deal of Arnold and 
were interested in him, wrote on to Switzer- 
land the outline which they gave of his 
story. 

Margaret — in part, because she had 
nothing else to do — let this letter fructify 
in her mind. First, it explained what had 
disappointed her in Arnold’s manner espe- 
cially on the morning he had evaded her 
in the garden, and to have a thing of that 
sort explained is always satisfactory. Then, 
secondly, it touched her sympathy; and sym- 
pathy — what a dangerous emissary that is of 
something more ! But this letter had yet a 


4 6 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

third effect on her mind. It made her think 
again about life. She began to feel that dis- 
cipline and disappointment are a large part 
of life — that its real meaning is largely hid 
in them. She looked at the life of the set 
which she lived in — was it life? The last 
gossip, the next gaiety! She had in abun- 
dance what were counted the good things of 
life; and yet, were wealth and ease and ad- 
miration and pleasure life’s real gifts? 
Here was one who had known the really 
great things — the things that ennoble and 
sweeten and gladden. It seemed to her as 
if Arnold were the only living person among 
those around her. Of course, all this was 
rather loose thinking. Our observation of 
life is hardly likely to be accurate when it is 
much colored by a personal interest such as 
Margaret’s in Arnold. So her judgments of 
the rest of the world were exaggerated, and 
her estimate of him was overdrawn. Never- 
theless, this was a true glimpse of life that 
thus came to her. Just as it is possible — 
as the theologians tell us — to hold heretical 


CUPID’S LONGBOW 


47 

views in a Catholic spirit, so it is possible 
to hold incorrect opinions in a true way. 

Her meditations were interrupted by the 
entrance of her aunt. Miss Coryn, with 
whom Margaret was travelling, was an 
elderly woman of the world, wealthy, clever 
and self-willed, who spent her days roam- 
ing over Europe with an imperious pug and 
an obsequious maid. 

“ Here you are,” she exclaimed. “ Hood’s 
been hunting for you all over the place. 
Well, my dear, I can’t stand this any longer, 
and I’m not going to. I’m sending Hood 
to telegraph for rooms at Badheim.” 

It was a revelation to Margaret herself to 
perceive how instinctive was the thought — 
that means not seeing Arnold again. 

“ But, aunt ” she began vaguely, and 

stopped. 

“ Well, what? ” replied Miss Coryn. 

“ You’ve not seen this place at all. You 
were in bed ” 

“ I was in bed the first week and saw four 
walls. This week I’ve been up and seen 


48 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

mist. Pm told there are hills around here, 
but I can’t wait all the season for them.” 

It was as if it would be a disappointment 
to the Alps, on emerging from the clouds, 
to find that she had gone. 

“ Let’s wait over Sunday,” said Margaret. 
Arnold had said he would be back by the 
end of the week. 

“ What are you so anxious to stay for? 
There must be some reason? ” 

Miss Coryn looked at her niece sharply, 
but the answer came at once: “ There is no 

reason in particular, only ” 

Margaret felt it was a lie, and stopped. 
Through that breach in her morals she saw 
her heart. 

“ Only what? ” 

“ I think you should see the place.” 

The breach was increasing and the view 
widening. 

“ I want to see the place, but if it isn’t 
visible, I can’t help it.” 

“ Give it another Sunday.” 

“ I don’t see there’s any meteorological 


CUPID'S LONGBOW 


49 

virtue in a Sunday, but you seem bent on 
it,” 

“ Oh, Pm quite willing to do whatever 
you want,” said Margaret, lying again. 
“ But I think ” 

“ Think what? ” 

“ I think it’s really a pity that you should 
have been at a place like this and not seen 
it. You know it’s really one of the views 
of Europe. You would be sorry if it cleared 
up just after we left.” 

Miss Coryn was quite deceived, and the 
end of it was that she consented. She called 
her maid. 

“ Have you packed everything, Hood?” 

“ Nearly everything, ma’am.” 

“ Then go and unpack. We’re not going.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” replied Hood, and went. 

u Oh, perhaps we should go if she’s done 
all the packing,” said Margaret in a moment 
of sympathy. 

“ Certainly not on that account,” replied 
Miss Coryn, rising and following her maid 
that, as the things were being taken out of 


50 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

the boxes, she might criticize how they had 
been put in. 

Margaret went out for a walk and tried to 
resume her serious consideration of what is 
life. The question only broke into laughter 
in her face. Instead of continuing to be the 
grave and great problem of existence, of 
truth and reality and the ideal and so on, it 
persisted in presenting itself in this ridicu- 
lous and irritatingly concrete shape : “ You 
are staying here instead of going to Bad- 
heim ; now, why? ” There was no use philoso- 
phizing; the question of her life was just 
this absurd little interrogation. She tried 
to survey the Alps, but she was conscious 
chiefly of an impudent squirrel peeping 
round the stem of a pine and saying as clear 
as possible : “ Why are you staying? ” She 
looked at the beast, and he scuttled up the 
side of the tree, like a naughty boy running 
off after he has rung a door-bell. 

Cupid’s longbow had hit its mark. He 
now began to sharpen his hand-weapons for 
close action. 



DEALING WITH BOTH 
LIFE AND DEATH 


A DAY or two later, on coming down 
to breakfast, Miss Crothers found 
Arnold in the salle-d-manger . He 
did not notice her enter, and she was able, 
unobserved, to see that he was physically 
greatly the better for his week’s tramp. He 
looked indeed singularly striking with his 
bronzed complexion, his clear eyes, his 
chiseled features, and well-set head. An 
elderly gentleman of professional aspect, 
sitting near Margaret, looked at him 
through his spectacles, and said to his 
wife — 

“ Who’s that man in dark gray? ” 

“ I don’t know. He came late last night.” 
“ He’s got the fatal gift.” 

“ You mean? ” 

Margaret really listened for the reply. 

“ Male beauty; in ninety per cent, of cases 
it’s a curse.” 

Si 


52 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

He said it in the same impartial, scientific 
tone in which he would have recorded a 
rainfall. 

“ Rather a bitter face, I think,” said the 
wife. 

Margaret looked at Arnold again. Yes: 
there was a bitterness in his face. With the 
increased strength and handsomeness that 
his improved physical condition had 
brought, he seemed certainly to have be- 
come harder and colder. While he was away 
she had been associating him in her mind 
with the higher and deeper ideals of life, 
but there was nothing suggestive of these 
in his face now. It was a set face, and not 
set towards what she had been thinking of 
about him. Margaret was somewhat per- 
plexed. It was her old mistake — looking 
for the man she had imagined him to be, in- 
stead of at the man he was. Again, she did 
not know the facts. 

Arnold, too, had been philosophizing. His 
week’s solitary walk among the hills had 
brought home to him how recent events in 
his life were affecting him morally. Stand- 


LIFE AND DEATH 


53 


ing one day at the divergence of two paths 
and considering which to take, it struck 
him how he had absolutely nothing in the 
world to consider in the choice but himself, 
and that so it was now in also his whole 
choice of good or evil. A man’s family and 
social ties are reasons and persuasions, for 
better or worse, one way or another in life ; 
w r hen these are withdrawn, he is left to 
make his own choice for his own reasons, 
and can go ahead. Arnold at that moment 
had not a tie in the world but the ticket for 
his luggage. 

He was conscious, too, of another thing. 
It was just in this day of isolation that he 
was distinctly called on to consider the 
worth of being really good. For that was 
at present the only question which his life 
afforded. All other questions — plans of 
work, artistic ideals and ambitions — were 
best avoided. They were only painful. His 
outward future was so precarious that no 
purpose was served by his thinking of it. 
Yes, he was quite aware that the one ques- 
tion of his life was whether what he had 


54 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

passed through was going to make him 
stronger and deeper and better, or weaker 
and harder and worse in his own character. 
Now Arnold was not a viciously inclined 
man; there was little in him that would 
actually choose what was morally bad. But 
thrown back thus by his isolation to find 
in himself some command and constraint 
to virtue, he found little or none. The good 
fight lacked motive. He thought of God 
and the moral law, but the idea had no im- 
mediateness or power. He recalled the 
memory of those he had lost, but all that 
was of a past — a past he would never for- 
get, but a past. In himself he found no 
motive whatever — rather a strange, imper- 
sonal curiosity to see what would become 
of himself. He would watch himself drift- 
ing till the drift ended. Arnold knew very 
well that this moral indifference would cer- 
tainly sink some day to actual evil. So be 
it. It concerned no one else, and he was 
but a small concern to himself. 

Behind all this he was unable to be un- 
conscious that the discipline of his life 


LIFE AND DEATH 


55 


might have, and, if he would look at it with 
other eyes, could have a very other effect 
on him, and make him a strong man in his 
loneliness and a tender man in his sorrows. 
It would not mean that without a noble 
choice, a regeneration of spirit, and a brave 
endurance; but with these it might mean 
it Arnold was not unaware that he was 
refusing even to seek this path. And it was 
that consciousness that put into his moral 
carelessness a cynicism and into his de- 
spondency a defiance which they need not 
have had. 

This was the Arnold whom Margaret had 
been thinking of as the only morally living 
person around her! 

It was a curious paradox. He had made 
her an idealist, and meanwhile had become 
a cynic. * He had brought something of sal- 
vation to another, and was himself in danger 
of being a castaway. 

They saw each other for only a few min- 
utes that morning as Margaret was waiting 
to drive with her aunt. She thanked him 
for the chocolates, and questioned him 


56 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

about his journey. He soon found himself 
describing it all to her. And the strange 
part of it was this. He was describing a 
journey which had been gloomy and bitter. 
Places in it there and there had, in his mind, 
association with only depressing memories. 
But, before his vivacious and expectant 
listener, it seemed to lose all its gloom and 
bitterness, and to assume a positive bright- 
ness. She infected it almost with joy. And 
when at last she exclaimed, “ IPs a great 
tour. What a splendid time you’ve had ! ” 
he replied, half laughing as he said it, 
“ Well, upon my word, I begin to think it 
was.” 

Margaret was prevented from questioning 
as to the precise meaning of his answer by 
being suddenly summoned by Hood. As she 
went off, Arnold’s eyes followed her, and, for 
the first time, the thought entered his mind 
that what the tramp of his life needed 
was He dismissed the idea. 

Upstairs, Margaret found a strange sight 
— a scene of lamentation and confusion. 
The pug was dead. A bone had stuck in 


LIFE AND DEATH 


57 


his throat, and Koko was no more. A doctor 
staying in the hotel had been imperiously 
summoned ; Hood was distracted with 
orders; the portier and the chambermaid 
were there; Mrs. Poole came in from a 
neighboring room. In spite of varied coun- 
sels and appliances, in spite even of tears, 
Koko died. Miss Coryn was in an extrava- 
gance of grief. 

“ He was my best friend on earth,” she 
murmured. 

“ My dear Miss Coryn,” said Mrs. Poole, 
who for days had looked for an opportunity 
of attaching herself to the wealthy old lady, 
“ how I can sympathize with you ! When 
my dear late husband died, I ” 

“ Husband ! ” exclaimed the bereaved con- 
temptuously ; “ husbands can be replaced. 
I shall never see another Koko.” 

Poor Mrs. Poole! It was not the con- 
tempt that stung her, but the reflection that 
her disappointing lot had been, after sev- 
eral years’ endeavor, that she could not re- 
place a husband. 

“ Is that you, Margaret? ” continued Miss 


j8 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Coryn, catching sight of her niece. “ You’re 
too late.” 

“ How did it happen? ” asked Margaret. 

“ I had gone downstairs and was just 
looking for you, when Hood came flying 
down and said Koko was choking. I rushed 
up, and I tell you my legs shook so when 
I got to the room that I could scarcely stand. 
It was almost over. We got help, but it 
was no use. Poor Koko ! he was always too 
fast an eater.” 

Miss Coryn’s emotion hushed the whole 
room into a solemn silence. 

“ Poor Koko ! ” said Margaret at last. 

“ He looked at me before he died, Hood? ” 
said Miss Coryn, appealing for corrobora- 
tion. 

“ Yes, ma’am, and smiled so beautiful 
peaceful-like,” replied the maid. The por- 
tier, who had hitherto been grave, at this 
point left hurriedly. 

“ Well, Margaret,” her aunt went on, 
“ we’ll go back to-morrow. He shall rest 
in his own old home.” 

“ Aunt, you surely don’t mean that you’re 


LIFE AND DEATH 


59 


going to take the dog’s body to England,” 
said Margaret. “ I don’t suppose he had 
any wishes on the subject,” she continued, 
rather unfeelingly, “ and you couldn’t find 
a more lovely spot than this.” 

“ Well — perhaps. But he shall have a 
proper grave, and I want a tombstone. I 
only wish our old rector was here to write 
an epitaph for it. There’s nothing I see in 
that to smile at. He deserves to be remem- 
bered more than many a human.” 

Miss Coryn spent the day in stately gloom 
and black satin. 

It was after dinner that Margaret told 
Arnold of the tragic event of the morning. 

“ Won’t you write the epitaph? ” she said. 

“ Give me an idea.” 

“ Well, there’s an idea,” she replied, and 
pointed to a great Danish hound belonging 
to the hotel. “ Did you ever see Max look 
so contented? Haven’t you noticed how 
every day he used to envy Koko’s delicacies 
as they were taken upstairs? Who is it 
says that ‘ death extinguished envy? ’ ” 

“ Bacon, wasn’t it? ” replied Arnold. 


6o LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ Well, here goes.” He took up a menu- 
card, and after a moment’s thought, 
scribbled on the back of it these lines — 

Envy extinguished! Rather say, instead. 

It pays its final tribute to the dead; 

He had a brute’s bliss — life; ah! he has now 

Man’s one sure, lasting good inherited! 

He gave it to her with a laugh, but as she 
read it her face grew almost stern. For a 
moment nothing was said. 

“ You don’t approve, I fear,” he said to 
break the silence, feeling, too, slightly 
ashamed of the silly lines he had written. 

“ Mr. Hamilton, come outside. I want to 
speak with you.” 

It was a command. There is a subtle 
effect produced on a man the first time a 
woman commands him in such a way. It 
marks a psychological moment. Where it 
is not justified by relationship or years, it 
must be justified by something else. Arnold 
was conscious of opening a new chapter in 
the story of his relationship to Margaret 
as, with an inquiring but not disobeying 
glance, he rose and went with her. 


\/T T IN WHICH ARNOLD AND 
V 1 1 MARGARET UNDERSTAND 
EACH OTHER 


I T was a divine evening. The rain of 
the previous days had passed and had 
left in all nature a fresh richness and 
warmth. The sunset lights were streaming 
over the fields, painting the rocks with the 
varied brilliance of the mosses and lichens, 
shading the fissures on the snowy hills, and 
melting down the valley into a mystic haze. 
The monarch peaks were standing out in 
superb serenity. The air was fresh and 
sweet after the rain, yet mild with the sum* 
mer heat. Margaret and Arnold took a path 
on the hillside that was a smile of flowers. 

The beauty of the scene fell on the young 
artist’s spirit like a spell, and for some way 
he walked without a word, like a man in 
a dream. His companion’s voice broke his 
reverie. She still held in her hand tho 
menu-card. 


61 


62 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ Mr. Hamilton,” she asked, speaking 
rather more quickly than was her wont, 
“ why did you write this? Is it true? I 
mean, is there not something truer you can 
say about life than that? ” 

“ Probably there is,” he replied, just a 
little nettled. “ I did not give you that as 
a final philosophy of things. Really, Miss 
Crothers, you jump on a man. You 
do not expect me to deliver my in- 
most soul over the passing of Koko, 
do you?” 

“ No ; but you have put a bit of it here. I 
know you have. Is it a true piece?” she 
persisted. 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ I mean, is there not something truer 
and deeper you get out of life than this 
cynical wanting to be rid of it? ” 

“ Why me? ” 

“ I don’t mean to be personal. Anybody. 
Isn’t there enough about us to make us 
careless? can’t you help us to put the better 
meaning into things? ” 

Arnold was taken aback. He had never 


ARNOLD AND MARGARET 63 


been preached to in this fashion before — 
certainly not by a beautiful girl whom he 
had known only a few days. Yet it was 
impossible to take offence at her obvious 
sincerity. 

“ Why, I repeat,” he answered, “ do you 
put this to me? There are plenty of people 
w T ho will find truer meanings of life for 
you. I can’t,” he added, in a lower tone, 
hardly meaning her to hear. 

“ You can,” she exclaimed, and then 
paused. She could hardly yet explain to 
him how it had been him who had suggested 
to her thoughts of life’s meanings and les- 
sons. “ You didn’t talk that way,” she re- 
sumed, “ this morning.” 

He looked up, and his fine face seemed 
lit with something more than the light of 
the setting sun. The vision of what would 
save his life appeared to him as if a pal- 
pable thing. And indeed it was before his 
eyes. 

“ This morning,” he replied, almost un- 
aware of what he was saying, “ I was talk- 
ing to you.” 


6 4 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

“ That has nothing to do with it,” said 
Margaret quickly. 

“Yes, it has everything to do with it,” 
asserted Arnold, with an earnestness and a 
directness which his manner had not had 
before. “ Miss Crothers, I wanted to say 
to you when you went away this morning 
that I was grateful to you ” He hesi- 

tated. 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” she put 
in. 

“ Well,” he said, ‘ I will tell you what I 
mean, if you will pardon my speaking to 
you for a minute about myself.” He paused 
a moment and then went on. “ You have 
guessed, perhaps, that what I was going in 
for was painting. I used to live in Scotland 
with my sister — she and I were alone of 
our family — and the two thoughts of my life 
were her, and to paint something some day. 

Well, three months ago But why should 

I trouble ' you with 1 all these personal 
matters? ” 

“ I shall not answer any question about 
troubling me,” said Margaret; “but per- 


ARNOLD AND MARGARET 65 

haps it is unfair not to tell you that I know 
what both the things you are going to men- 
tion are.” She spoke softly. 

“ How in the world do you know them? ” 
demanded Arnold, not a little perturbed. 

“ I think you know people called Bruce. 
A friend of mine was staying with them 
lately, and they told her about you.” 

“ But how did it reach you? ” 

Margaret felt she had almost betrayed 
herself, and explained that Mrs. Walmer, 
finding herself writing to Rosen wald, and 
knowing that Mr. Hamilton was there, had 
mentioned what the Bruces had said. 

“ I don’t know how the Bruces or any one 
else knew that I was here,” said Arnold, not 
yet satisfied. “ However,” he continued in 
a different and colder tone, “ that doesn’t 
matter. And so you pitied me, and there- 
fore talked kindly to me.” 

“ Mr. Hamilton ! ” 

“ You don’t know that men hate above all 
other things to be pitied.” 

“ I know that women feel above all other 
things injustice. Are you just to me, Mr. 


66 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


Hamilton? I might have let you talk on; 
would that have been fair? If I was fair 
to you, you must be fair to me.” 

“ You are quite right,” he answered at 
once, “ and I beg your pardon. But, though 
I said it in a way I shouldn’t, it was pity, 
wasn’t it? ” 

“ No, it wasn’t. I talked for my own 
sake and not yours.” 

“ For your sake? ” 

Margaret was silent for a moment, and 
then answered in a quiet voice. 

“ You have referred to your life; do you 
mind if I refer to mine? ” She paused 
again, and then went on in an abstracted 
manner as if speaking to herself rather than 
to another. “ Long ago one used to think 
of life as made for all sorts of great and 
noble ends, but as one grows up one finds 
that that must have been some other ex- 
istence one was thinking of, and that one 
must live life as one finds it. I suppose one 
finds what one is capable of finding, but I at 
least have not found anything great or 
worthy in the kind of life I live. And I 


ARNOLD AND MARGARET 67 


say you’ve got to live your life as you find 
it. One comes to think,” she added in a 
lower, sadder voice, “ of the person one 
meant to be as of some one who is dead.” 

She stopped, feeling she had made a 
rather incoherent speech. Arnold was lis- 
tening gravely and respectfully, but he 
made no answer. 

“ And yet,” continued Margaret — and she 
seemed to be, as indeed she really was, bit 
by bit discovering herself and recording the 
result — “ it is one’s present self that is dead. 
One is not really seeing life and learning it. 
One’s life is without the element of living.” 

She said the last sentence almost appeal- 
ingly to him, but he was still silent. She 
had to go on, and did so rather embar- 
rassedly. 

“ When I began this soliloquy,” she said, 
“ which must have seemed to you rather 
ridiculous, it was to explain that I talked to 
you, not for your sake — the idea! — but my 
own.” 

“ I am not the person to help any one,” 
replied Arnold at last. 


68 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ We are speaking frankly/’ said Mar- 
garet. “ Then, I can only tell you that it 
was — it was you that gave me again the idea 
of living a little more truly.” 

“ Nothing that I said, or could say, could 
do that.” 

“ It isn’t what people say. But you were 
facing life’s real facts and real meanings, 
and that made me feel how I was living 
without touching real life at all.” 

“ But I am not facing them,” he almost 
cried out. “ You are perfectly right about 
this,” he went on in a calmer tone, taking 
from her hand the menu-card. “ It is con- 
temptible and cowardly : it is not true.” He 
tore the card into pieces. “ But,” he added, 
“ I spoke for myself in it more than you 
think.” 

“ You spoke to me more than you think.” 

“ To you? ” 

“ What right have you to put better 
thoughts into one’s mind one day, and to 
chill them the next? ” 

They had stopped walking, and were 
standing facing each other. 


ARNOLD AND MARGARET 69 


“ I never meant,” said Arnold, “ to put 
thoughts into any one’s head. I was a 
different man, in a lower mood — that’s all. 
Your question is simply, what justification 
one had to fall back into a cheap and 
cowardly mood? ” 

“ I have no right,” she replied, “ to put 
any such question to you. If I have 
gone ” 

“ You are just the person that has that 
right; and you must and will convince me 
that I had no such justification,” he said, 
with earnestness. 

“ I don’t quite understand.” 

“ I was giving up,” he answered in de- 
liberate tones. “ I was really giving up. 
We say we are speaking frankly. Well, I 
owe more than I can tell to your talking 
with me. If one can’t pay one’s debts, one 
can at least acknowledge them.” 

“It is I who have to speak of debts be- 
tween us.” 

“ It is I.” 

“ Then it is both of us. That makes us 
quits,” she added, with a smile. 


70 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

It relieved the tension a little. It had 
been a strange conversation. They had 
really been talking at cross-purposes. What 
was in her mind was the ideals of life he 
had somehow suggested to her, and of that 
he was unaware. He had been thinking 
chiefly of his moral surrender during his 
week’s walk, and that she had never wit- 
nessed. Yet they strangely understood each 
other, and felt they were something to each 
other; indeed, the conversation might have 
led to a climax but for the appearance of 
Hood at a turn of the path. 

“ I see your aunt’s maid coming,” said 
Arnold, “ and she seems to be looking for 
you. Miss Crothers, if we have said so 
much, you must pardon my saying one thing 
more. You have charged and convicted me 
of falling back into cowardly and cynical 
views of life.” 

Margaret opened her lips to protest, but 
he went on. 

“ Yes. I was adrift, and you were the 
hail of a passing ship. And if it passes 
away below the horizon? You have given 


ARNOLD AND MARGARET 71 


me a hope : a new hope is the risk of a new 
despair. Miss Crothers (confound that 
maid ! ) , I don’t know how long either of us 
is staying here. But we are and shall be 
— friends? ” 

There was no time to answer with more 
than a smile. After all, it is by what people 
do not say that their hearts speak. Love is 
the Lied ohne Worte. 

Hood arrived flurried. Upon her must 
rest the blame that this chapter ends in an 
anti-climax. 

“ There’s nothing wrong, I hope, Hood? ” 
said Margaret. 

“ Please, miss, there’s a telegram from 
England. I think Miss Ethel’s ill, miss. 
Miss Coryn sent me to bring you.” 

“ A telegram that Ethel is ill,” cried 
Margaret ; and they returned rapidly to the 
hotel. 


\/TT[ THE INSTINCT 
V 111 OF PARTING 


T HE telegram was urgent, and sum- 
moned Margaret to come home im- 
mediately. Her sister’s illness was 

critical. 

When they reached the hotel, Miss Coryn, 
quite recovered apparently from her emo- 
tion over the death of Koko, had consulted 
timetables and made out every arrangement 
for her niece’s departure. 

“ The mail passes Louville,” she said, 
after Margaret had read the telegram, “ at 
ten-thirty. It’s now nearly nine. You can 
drive there in an hour. I’ve ordered a car- 
riage for twenty-five past. You’ve had 
dinner; do you want more to eat? No? 
Then, can you be ready in half an hour? 
Yes? Then, Hood, get your own things 
ready, and when you’ve finished, help Miss 
Crothers. Hood will travel with you as far 
as Calais at least ; you mustn’t go alone. I 
can do without her for three days.” 

72 


THE INSTINCT OF PARTING 73 

And so, at half an hour’s notice, Mar- 
garet was hurried out of Rosenwald. Ar- 
nold had asked her if there was anything 
he could do, and, on her assuring him that 
there was nothing, had disappeared. When 
she came down to the carriage to go off, 
she looked round for him; occupied as her 
mind was with her anxiety, she felt she 
could hardly leave without saying a good-by 
to him. 

“ What are you looking for? ” said her 
aunt. “ Everything’s in. You’ve no- time 
to lose.” 

The half-hour struck. Margaret glanced 
round once more. 

“ Please, miss, I beg parding, but I saw 
Mr. Hamilton leave the hotel about half an 
hour ago,” said Hood, interpreting her de- 
lay only too well. Both Miss Coryn and her 
niece darted a look at the woman. Then 
Margaret got into the carriage, and Hood 
followed. The portier shut the door, and 
told the coachman to drive fast. The man 
did as he was told. The carriage flew along. 

When at length it drew up at Louville, 


74 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Arnold was standing at the station door to 
receive it. 

“ You’ve eleven minutes,” he said to Mar- 
garet. Then he nodded to the driver and 
gave him something. It crossed Margaret’s 
mind that the speed at which they had come 
was not due entirely to the portier’s injunc- 
tion. 

It was significant in their new intimacy 
that Arnold gave Margaret no word of ex- 
planation for his appearance to say good- 
by — he had come by a short cut over the 
hill — and that she, on her part, found it 
almost natural to meet him. There was no 
time, in the first instance, to talk. To get 
the tickets, to register the luggage, to secure 
a coupe occupied half of the available min- 
utes. 

When these things were done there were 
but a few minutes till the train started. 
Margaret talked about her home and her 
younger sister, from whom she had never 
before been separated. 

The conversation paused for a moment. 


THE INSTINCT OF PARTING 75 


It was a still, solemn night. Though it was 
late, a faint blush yet tinged the western 
sky, and the evening star was brilliantly 
clear. Almost unconsciously, Arnold re- 
peated, half aloud, the first line of “ Cross- 
ing the Bar,” and then stopped, bit his lip, 
and inwardly cursed himself for his thought- 
lessness. 

Margaret was sensitive to the suggestion. 

“ Oh ! I cannot believe,” she said, “ that 
she is — is not going to get better.” 

“ I humbly beg your pardon,” said Ar- 
nold, “ that I have suggested ” 

“ You have not suggested it, Mr. Hamil- 
ton,” she said quietly. “ It is impossible to 
love any one without often thinking of 
death.” 

“ Yes,” was all Arnold felt able to sav. 

“ It is such a dreadful thing,” Margaret 
went on, “ if loving simply ends in dying. 
It would make it impossible to believe in 
God’s love, in anything. Yet,” she added, 
with a wistfulness in her voice, “ it all seems 
sometimes so uncertain.” Then more 


76 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


slowly : “ Don’t you think one is only made 
sure that God is love by finding His love 
in one’s own life? ” 

How Arnold would have given all his 
art if he could have answered! He was 
silent. 

Margaret changed the subject. “ I wish 
you knew her,” she said. “ Some day I hope 
you will.” 

Arnold simply replied : “ I hope so.” 

There were earnest, passionate words at 
his lips, and Margaret would not have re- 
fused to hear them. But the whole force of 
circumstances were against their utterance ; 
not only the bustle and publicity of the sta- 
tion and the sense of having but two min- 
utes in hand, but also the feeling that their 
thoughts could not be at that moment of 
themselves. To Margaret this came less 
as a thought than as an instinct ; to Arnold 
it came as a reflection. And yet, with all 
this restriction and complication of cir- 
cumstance, when the time really to part 
came, they knew what they were to each 
other more clearly than they had ever done. 


THE INSTINCT OF PARTING 77 

When kindred souls meet, they may feel 
their attraction; it is when they are part- 
ing that tliej 7 feel they are necessary to each 
other. 

The carriage doors w r ere being shut. 

“ I must get in,” said Margaret, and 
offered her hand. 

“ I wonder when I may hope to see you 
again,” said Arnold, taking it. “ This is 
Auf Wiederseh’n , Miss Crothers? ” he 
added, with an anxious interrogation. 

“ I trust so, Mr. Hamilton.” 

“We have not yet finished that talk.” 

“ No, we have not.” 

“ En voitur-r-re! En voitur-r-re! ” rang 
along the platform. Margaret stepped into 
the coupe. She had the window. 

“ May I give you this trifle for the jour- 
ney?” said Arnold, and he handed up a 
dainty silk-covered air- pillow, neatly folded 
up, with a few gentians in the band. Mar- 
garet took it, said a word of pleasure and 
thanks, hesitated a moment, and then took 
a rose out of her dress and gave it him in 
exchange. 


78 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ Quits again,” she said, smiling for the 
first time since the interruption of their 
walk in the wood. 

“ May I write a line to you some day to 
learn how your sister is and — how you 
are? ” he asked, after thanking her. 

“ I shall be glad,” she replied. 

The campanological performance which 
abroad sanctions the departure of a train 
ended, and the engine’s shriek echoed in 
the mountains like a banished spirit. The 
carriage moved off. 

“ Auf IViederseh’n ” said Arnold again. 

“ Auf Wiederseh’n” said Margaret in 
reply. 

And then every minute widened the dis- 
tance between them. To him, the tail-light 
disappeared round a curve, the roar became 
a rumble, and the rumble died in the dis- 
tance. To her, his figure in the window- 
frame was blotted out by rushing embank- 
ments, and the train rattled on as if in a 
very fury of haste to put more miles be- 
tween them. 

There is an instinct in a parting. It is 


THE INSTINCT OF PARTING 79 


not so much the fear of never meeting again. 
It is the sense of change. Life is not a 
state of being: it is a state of becoming. 
If and when we meet again, shall we have 
become others — strangers? 

We may meet; but shall we meet? 

Not the train only rushes on : navra pet 1 

1 “ All things are in motion.” A saying of the Greek 
philosopher Heraclitus. 



MARGARET 
COMES HOME 


T HE Crothers of Broadfields, Rucks, 
were well-known county-people. 
Colonel Crothers was a retired 
Anglo-Indian officer. He had once been a 
not bad man and a good soldier, but he had 
not improved as he got older, and now — not 
far from sixty — he was both selfish and un- 
principled. One hears often from preach- 
ers and others about the worldliness of 
young people, but there is generally a saving 
idealism about youth that preserves it from 
the worst kind of worldliness; it is when a 
man is up in years that, unless he beware, 
liis mundane self-interest, his gratifications, 
and his vices take their firmest grip of his 
soul. With Colonel Crothers this was in- 
tensified, because — a man of expensive 
tastes, in which, too, his sons followed him 
— he had been of late not seldom in straits 
about money. He speculated a good deal, 
80 


MARGARET COMES HOME 81 


and often had to curse his luck ; more than 
once he had involved himself in debt. All 
this not only demeaned his own nature, but 
also saddened the life of his wife, who was 
some fifteen years younger than her hus- 
band. She was a woman by nature good, 
but she had been spoiled by an idle, lux- 
urious life in India — where there are neither 
children nor aged people to draw out human 
unselfishness — and had developed morally 
into a pliant, undetermined woman who in 
her own heart had pure and tender aspira- 
tions, but could do no battle for them in this 
world. In her day she had been a great 
beauty — she had still great sweetness and 
charm — and Captain Crothers, as he then 
was, became the envy of male Simla when 
he won Kate Newcomb’s hand. But her 
married life had not been happy. It was 
not he that she had loved, and, after their 
marriage, he never wooed her heart. Her 
life, such as it was, she acquiesced in with 
an unheroic acceptance. She kept green the 
early memories of her girlhood and cherished 
softly hopes of heaven, but she did not even 


82 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


try to have any immediate ideal either for 
herself or others. That her sons’ lives 
should be the lives of men of the world, and 
that her daughters should some day marry 
men of the world/ would make her gentle 
spirit sad when she thought of it, but it 
was as things are and presumably must be. 
There were in the family two sons and two 
daughters. The sons were the aggressive 
members of the house whenever they were 
at home ; both of them, however, were a good 
deal away. Their lives were consecrated to 
the one idea of sport, and they had alike the 
vices and better qualities of men whose ex- 
istence centres upon the field, the moor, and 
the turf. The daughters were Margaret and 
Ethel. 

In this home the two girls led a life at 
once natural and exotic. They were entirely 
capable of entering into the less objection- 
able sides of their brothers’ interests. Mar- 
garet loved exercise and enjoyed the occu- 
pations of outdoor-life; she was a splendid 
rider and could throw a line exquisitely, and 
was, moreover, a girl of whose beauty her 


MARGARET COMES HOME 83 


brothers were proud. Ethel was much 
younger — she was just over seventeen — 
and, while more delicate physically than her 
sister, was the picture of a pure, sweet, Eng- 
lish flower, in the gladness of life. Yet both 
of them had elements in their nature that 
made them, at the same time, live an inner 
life of their own. They often had talks 
together very different to the conversation 
common in Broadfields, and read books that 
were not household volumes. It was all a 
kind of secret. In that house everything 
that was connected with the life of the 
spirit — not religion only, but literature in 
its higher forms and art, and what Ethel 
called “ talking about things ” — seemed to 
be afraid of publicity. The flesh of horses 
was discussed with vehemence and volubil- 
ity, but the soul of man was apparently 
regarded as if it were an indecency. This 
affected all the house. Mrs. Crothers often 
prayed in her room, but if she heard her 
husband’s step, rose hastily from her knees 
and pretended she had been looking for 
something. The girls read their favorite 


84 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


books rarely elsewhere than in Margaret’s 
boudoir or alone in the woods. One day 
Ethel was studying Browning in the draw- 
ing-room when her brothers came in, and 
she fled with such a flaming face of guilt 
that to this day they believe she had ab- 
stracted some risque volume from their 
smoking-room. 

This was the home to which Margaret 
was hastening back from Rosenwald. Her 
spirit could not but be conscious of a change 
of moral and intellectual climate, but dur- 
ing these hurried days and nights of travel, 
what room was there in her mind for any 
thought but this: will she be gone? 

The telegrams she got on the way neither 
gave hope nor extinguished it. One of her 
brothers met her at Dover; he told her 
many things, but could not say whether or 
not Ethel was living. They reached Bi lke- 
ley — the station for Broadfields — late; the 
carriage was waiting, and in half an hour 
they were at the house. It looked dark and 
almost untenanted except for some windows 


MARGARET COMES HOME 85 

lit up on the third floor. Margaret recog- 
nized with surprise that they were the win- 
dows of her boudoir. 

Her mother met her at the door. 

“ She’s living? ” said Margaret in a 
breath. 

“ Yes, dear.” 

“ Is there hope? ” 

“ The doctors will not say. A few hours 
will decide.” 

“ Where is she? ” 

“In your boudoir; she asked yesterday 
to be moved in there.” 

Margaret, throwing off her* cloak, rushed 
upstairs and then stole into the room. Ethel 
was lying on a small bed that had been 
brought in. She was in high fever, tossing 
her hands about, talking and singing, re- 
peating snatches of poetry, and demanding 
an answer to all sorts of questions. Two 
doctors were in the room, and they ex- 
changed glances as Margaret entered. A 
nurse was beside the bed, applying ice. The 
Colonel and his sons were hanging about 


86 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


the corridor. At the foot of the bed, stuck 
into the brass-work, was a photograph of 
Margaret. 

“ She would come into this room,” said 
the nurse quietly, making place, at the sign 
from the senior of the doctors, for Mar- 
garet ; “ and ever since then she’s been talk- 
ing and singing this way and calling for 
you. There again ! ” 

“ Do you think so, Margey? Do you 
think that’s what it means? Tell me, tell 
me, Margey. Margey, why don’t you tell 
me?” 

Margaret knelt down beside the bed and 
took the fevered hand. 

“ Ethel, darling,” she said, “ I’m here.” 

The young girl lay motionless for a min- 
ute’s space, with bated breath and closed 
eyes. Then she suddenly opened her eyes 
full on her sister and looked at her. It 
seemed at first as if she did not know her. 
Then a meaning broke into her look and a 
smile came on her lips. 

“ You’ve come,” she said. 

“ Yes, darling, I’ve come.” 


MARGARET COMES HOME 87 

“ They told me you were killed in the 
train,” exclaimed Ethel, glancing excitedly 
round. “ Who was it told me that? ” Then 
her eyes came back to her sister and quieted 
again. u But you’re here. I knew you 
would come. It’s you, Margey? ” she added 
anxiously. 

“ Yes, yes, Ethel ; it’s me,” said Margaret, 
and kissed her. 

“ You’ll not go away?” said the girl, 
clutching at her. 

“ I’ll not go away.” 

“ Oh, I’m so glad! O Margey, I’m so 
happy ! ” 

It was like a miracle. She fell asleep. 

All that night neither the doctors, nor 
the nurse, nor Margaret left her. There 
were critical hours more than once; but to 
pass that night meant everything, and when 
the morning came it found her in a sweet 
slumber. After breakfast, the consulting 
physician, who was returning to London, 
said to Mrs. Crothers and Margaret, “ I 
think I can leave hope with you. But,” he 
added, “ she needs the most careful atten- 


88 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

tion, and she needs ” — he turned to Mar- 
garet — “ you.” 

“ How shall I ever thank you, Sir Wil- 
liam,” said Mrs. Crothers, “ for saving my 
child’s life? ” 

“ Miss Crothers has saved her sister’s 
life,” he replied. 


X LOVE’S 
FOOL 

A RNOLD was renewing the water in 
which he had placed the rose. He 
seemed a new man. He was actu- 
ally singing aloud. As he replaced the 
flower he began to himself a verse of the 
old folk-song, “ Es ist bestimmt,” to Men- 
delssohn’s familiar melody. He sang the 
first half — 

“ So dir geschenkt ein Knosplein was. 

So thu’ es in ein Wasser-glas; 

Doch wisse ! ” 

and then he broke off into his own im- 
promptu German, and in a louder voice 
sang — 

Das Roslein welkt in kurzer Zeit, 

Doch Liebe bliiht in Ewigkeit! 

Das wisse! 

Not a few times that morning he repeated 
his extemporized refrain with new em- 
phasis : “ Das wisse! ” 

89 


9 o LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

All emotion needs to be succeeded by a 
period of reflection in which the whole 
nature may reaffirm the first instincts of 
sentiment. Margaret had never had enough 
freedom or rest of mind during these days 
for it. Her emotions towards Arnold were 
too rapidly succeeded by her anxieties about 
her sister. With him it was different. He 
had full leisure for this period of confirma- 
tion. To some extent, indeed, he shared her 
anxieties, but he had no absorbing duties, 
as she had, to occupy the mind, and even his 
thoughts of Ethel, whom he did not know, 
could be only thoughts connected with Mar- 
garet. So, in the few days after her de- 
parture, his mind was uninterruptedly with 
her and the impression of what she had 
been, what she had said, how she had looked 
— it all wrought itself into the very woof of 
his memory. Really to remember a thing 
is not simply to know that you have seen it, 
but, in some definite sense, to see it still. 
In this sense Arnold remembered Margaret. 

One day, after lying for some time above 
the path where they had talked that evening, 


LOVE'S FOOL 


9i 


he suddenly rose, went to the hotel, and 
returned with drawing materials. He was 
supposed to be forbidden to do work while 
he was recruiting his health, but he had 
with him some of an artist’s paraphernalia 
nevertheless. With a rapid brush he 
sketched the turn in the path, the trees on 
each side, the snow-hills in the vista beyond. 
No one passed. He was alone and absorbed 
in his work. Next day he resumed it. With 
increasing boldness and firmness of touch 
he drew her figure, standing as she stood 
when she stopped and faced him with the 
question — “ What right have you to chill 
them the next day?” His model seemed 
to be there before him. Every touch he gave 
had the great quality that it was sure. He 
had never worked more unhesitatingly or 
more confidently. He was in the mood in 
which a man can do nothing wrong. When 
he finished, it would be untrue to say he was 
satisfied, but he had nothing to add. 

All this made him only the more think of 
Margaret, and wonder how things had gone 
with her sister. He wanted to write, but 


92 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

hesitated to do so till he knew whether Ethel 
were still living. The natural and indeed 
only person who could tell him was Miss 
Coryn. He had never been introduced to 
Margaret’s aunt, who rarely joined any of 
the company in the hotel, but finding her 
one day, the fourth day after Margaret had 
left, sitting on the terrace, he approached 
her. 

“ Will you pardon my intruding upon 
you,” he said, “ to inquire if you have any 
news of your niece on whose account Miss 
Crothers was so hastily summoned home? 
I hope you have had good news.” 

Miss Coryn looked at him critically and 
said, “ Mr. Hamilton, I presume.” 

Arnold felt the style savored of Central 
African exploration. He indicated assent. 
Miss Coryn again looked critically at him, 
but, after a moment, told him she had re- 
ceived a telegram that morning stating how 
marvelously Ethel had passed the crisis of 
her illness. They exchanged one or two 
conventional remarks, but Arnold felt lie 


LOVE’S FOOL 


93 


was being examined, and soon took an op- 
portunity to leave. 

He went into the hotel and wrote the fol- 
lowing : — 

“ I have just heard from Miss Coryn glad news of 
your sister. May one use your kind permission to 
write and say how truly one shares your joy? What 
a bringer of hope you are! 

“ You are still full of cares and duties, and I must 
not send more than this line. You would be sur- 
prised to see how I have been spending this morning. 
I have been painting. I shall show it you when 
we meet. That must be some day. Your rose is 
blooming. 

“ Is it too much to look for a line from you ? ” 

He addressed her with the conventional 
“ Dear Miss Crothers,” and signed himself 
“ Yours sincerely.” It was gapingly inade- 
quate. But let him only see from her reply 
that more would be not inopportune, and 
he promised himself that then no longer 
would he put a gag upon the utterance of 
his heart. 

Then, having posted the note, he went out 


94 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


once more into the woods. It was again a 
day of almost indescribable loveliness. The 
sunlight streamed upon the fields and trees 
and rocks, a very god of life, and made 
them visibly breathe with beauty. Arnold 
was sensitive to nature as few men are, yet 
that day it was not the beauty of the scene 
that filled his mind. Its beauty was for all 
the world ; the dullest passers-by could not 
but feel it. To him it was far more than 
beautiful; it was meaningful. That spot 
where the light seemed to strike fire out of 
the red pine-wood, where the plain brown 
earth was a wonder of richness and warmth, 
and the green of the grass palpably lived — 
it had for him a history. For him and only 
him ! To the gazing visitor it would show 
its beauty, but only with one it shared its 
secret 

Arnold lay down and lit his pipe, and, as 
his eyes followed the curling, seductive 
rings, he gave himself up to the very luxury 
of sentiment. Let us not seek to put a 
lover’s dreams in print. It is to make him 
appear pitiable, whereas the man to be 


LOVE’S FOOL 


95 


pitied is the man who pities him and who 
has it not in him to forget the earth beneath 
his feet, the world around, mortality itself 
and all its care, and, in some high, aerial 
realm, amid the light that never was on sea 
or land, “ bestride the gossamer ” and “ yet 
not fall.” He that would spend his life thus 
will die most properly in a poorhonse; but 
he who is too clever or too cautious ever to 
be fooled by love dies poorer still. 

To Arnold, that day, love was not the 
problem, the burden, the pain that, in this 
late age, our modern writers know. It was 
beauty, life, joy. Love and laughter lived 
together in his heart. His love was perfect, 
and it cast out fear : nothing is perfect that 
has not in it joy. And when love is thus 
glad in its youth and strength, it ennobles. 
It surged through Arnold’s being like a 
flood of sweet, clear water, and carried 
clean away his cynicism, his carelessness, 
his cowardice. His new love meant new 
ideals, and these — for love’s ideals are high 
and severe — new duties, new discipline, new 
effort. Love called him to be worthy of 


96 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


love : the very call seemed to fit him to rea- 
lize it. 

“ Behold ! ” says love — love that is not 
afraid to be itself, to be romantic, ideal, im- 
passioned — “ I make all things new.” Ar- 
nold lay in a new world with life about to 
begin for him. 

Suddenly a thought fell into his mind 
like a stone thrown into a pool. 

Should he be smoking? His doctor had 
practically forbidden it. 

Is not this the pathetic irony of human 
life — that the spirit is so intrinsically the 
superior of all its physical conditions and 
circumstances, and yet that, at any moment, 
these may threaten it, thwart it, overwhelm 
it? We are masters who have no security 
against their own slaves. 

The thought came home very poignantly 
to Arnold. A week before, it would have 
made him bitter. But somehow, now, 
it suggested other sentiments — familiar 
enough, yet unaccustomed. Arnold was not, 
in the accepted sense of the term, a religious 
man ; but that hour there arose in his heart 


LOVE’S FOOL 


97 


a singular discernment that something — 
some one — was taking to do with his life, 
and that very generously. Was this — God? 
He remembered how dull and helpless he 
had been when Margaret spoke of love and 
death. Was it, as she had said, that one 
learned a faith about that by finding that 
God was loving us? He recalled the familiar 
phrases of religion. His mind went back to 
the day when he had read the Twenty- third 
Psalm, at her request, to his dying sister. 
It had meant nothing for him then as he 
read it, though it seemed to be wonderfully 
meaningful for her. But now there ap- 
peared to emerge from it a slender and yet 
strangely sure meaning for him too. It was 
true about his life. Perhaps the fitting of 
it to his experience was fanciful; still, it 
fitted. 

There are two things in life whose secrets 
are supremely worth knowing — religion and 
romance. Arnold that day learned some- 
thing of both. And so the place where he 
was the fool of love was also the place where 
he began to find the supreme wisdom. 



“ MILITIAS SPECIES 
AMOR EST” 


A RNOLD’S was not the only letter that 
left Rosenwald that day for Broad- 
fields. 

The day after he had parted from Miss 
Coryn, that estimable lady summoned Hood, 
who had returned in safety from her jour- 
ney. 

“ I noticed a; remark you made to Miss 
Crothers, Hood, as she was getting into the 
carriage the other night. What did it mean 
exactly? ” 

Miss Coryn spoke in the tone of a mis- 
tress, and Hood did not pretend that she 
did not remember what she had said. 

“ I only said, ma’am,” she replied, “ that 
Mr. Hamilton, the young gentleman as 
passed here a little while ago, had gone 
away.” 


98 


“ MILITIiE SPECIES AMOR EST ” 99 


“ What made you tell Miss Crothers 
that? ” 

“ Well, ma’am, I saw Miss Crothers was 
looking round for him.” 

“ How did you know she was looking 
round for him? ” 

“ Well, ma’am, I — don’t know.” 

“ I ask you how did you know Miss Croth- 
ers was looking round for him?” repeated 
Miss Coryn distinctly. 

“ I thought it, ma’am.” 

“ What made you think it? ” 

Hood did not answer. 

“ I’m waiting,” said her mistress. 

Hood hesitated a few moments longer, 
and then gave in. 

“Well, ma’am, they were together when 
I took Miss Margaret the news about Miss 
Ethel,” said the maid reluctantly. 

“ Where was that? ” asked Miss Coryn. 

“ In the path in that wood.” 

“ What were they doing? ” 

“ Only talking, ma’am.” 

“Only that, indeed!” said the old lady 
sarcastically. “ What about? ” 

ILofC. 


ioo LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ Oh, I don’t know that, ma’am, I’m sure,” 
said Hood, welcoming the momentary 
refuge in ignorance. 

“ What do you think? ” her mistress con- 
tinued. 

“ I — I — really can’t ” 

“ I know you can’t think,” said Miss 
Coryn, “ but try, this time.” The poor 
woman felt crushed and helpless. “ Do you 
think,” went on her inquisitor, “ they were 
talking of — well, personal matters? ” 

“ Do you mean about you, ma’am?” 

“ No, you fool; I mean about themselves. 
Are you utterly stupid? Did you hear any- 
thing they said? ” 

“ Oh, ma’am ! do you think I would ” 

“ You would, fast enough, if you could. 
Well, never mind that. Is this the only 
time you’ve seen them together?” 

“ I’ve seen them talking out here.” 

“How often?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ That must mean a good many times. 
Have you seen them together anywhere 
else? ” 


“MILITIiE SPECIES AMOR EST” ioi 


“ No, ma’am — that is, except at the sta- 
tion.” 

“ The station! What station?” cried 
Miss Coryn. 

Hood had been trained as a child in truth- 
fulness. For the first time she wished that 
day that her upbringing had been otherwise. 
She had the will to lie, but had not developed 
the faculty. The whole story came out — 
the parting, the flowers, the last words. 
Miss Coryn extracted every detail before she 
dismissed Hood, who then went off to her 
room and had a good cry. 

Miss Coryn was furious. Not only was 
she indignant at the idea of her niece, whom 
she had always destined for a good match, 
throwing herself away on a man who, she 
said to herself, was “ probably not able to 
keep a cat.” That was only half of it. What 
enraged her almost more was that she had 
been hoodwinked through it all. Now she 
understood why Margaret had been so 
anxious not to go to Badheim. ner blood 
boiled with vexation as she thought how she 
had been taken in. 


102 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


She marched into the hotel with a very 
red face. The first thing she did was to 
take, instead of an ordinary afternoon tea, a 
good square meal with a half-bottle of Pom- 
mery. She meant to have it out with this 
Scotsman, and with a vague impression that 
he might show fight, she fortified herself. 

Then she sent Hood to ask Mr. Hamilton 
to speak with her. Hood, who imagined that 
the whole world bowed in awe before her 
imperious mistress, felt as if she were sum- 
moning a little boy to get a whipping. She 
was also very loth to do anything against 
Margaret, in whom, during their two days’ 
journey, she had found for the first time 
what kindness in a mistress is. And with 
them both, had she not a deeper bond of 
sympathy? She too had had her romance; 
too with a painter. Unhappily, they had 
quarreled one day as he was doing the area 
railings, and had parted; but it had ever 
since given her a certain sympathy with 
alike romance and art. 

On receiving Miss Coryn’s message, Ar- 
nold naturally imagined that she meant to 


“MILITLE SPECIES AMOR EST” 103 


give him some further news of the invalid 
at Broadfields. To his surprise she only 
stiffly acknowledged his approach, and left 
him to open the conversation. 

“ I hope you have not had bad news,” he 
said at last in some anxiety. 

“ News of what? ” she replied shortly. 

“ Of your niece.” 

“ Which niece? ” 

Arnold was surprised, but he replied 
quietly: “ Your niece who is ill.” 

“ No,” said Miss Coryn, “ I have no bad 
news of my niece who is ill.” 

“ You have not bad news, I hope, of your 
other niece — of Miss Crothers?” 

He asked it quickly. It was the move she 
wanted him to play. She began already to 
feel sure of victory. 

“ I think,” she said, “ that you have seen 
Miss Crothers more recently than I have.” 

She leant back in her chair as a man does 
at chess after making what he considers a 
strong move. Arnold looked up. 

“ I don’t quite ” he replied. “ Ah, 

yes; I understand. Miss Crothers has told 


io4 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


you that I gave myself the pleasure of 
seeing her off.” 

“ Miss Crothers has told me nothing,” 
said Miss Coryn, unable to resist the temp- 
tation to take the pawn. 

“ Indeed? ” he replied, and she felt what 
a thoroughly bad move she had made. 
“ Then I am not sure that I do under- 
stand.” 

“ You are to understand,” she answered, 
anxious to force the game, “ that I am sur- 
prised, and more than surprised, that you 
did not think it necessary and proper to 
acquaint me with your friendship with my 
niece.” 

The suddenness of the attack took Arnold 
by surprise, but he played the obvious move. 

“ It was not till yesterday, Miss Coryn,” 
he said quietly, “ that I had the opportunity 
of even making your acquaintance.” 

She felt she was a fool not to have seen 
that, but covered her annoyance and pur- 
sued the same game. Miss Coryn was a 
really strong player when she was winning, 
but she had not great resource. 


“MILITIA SPECIES AMOR EST” 105 


“ I think I had the right to know,” she 
said. 

“ To know what? ” 

“ To know of your intimate friendship 
with my niece.” 

“ But what do you mean by intimate 
friendship?” he persisted. 

Arnold was checking her along the line she 
had left open when she foolishly took that 
pawn at the opening. She was not good at 
a defensive game. And champagne is not 
good to lose on. She played anything. 

“ You must not imagine you can hide 
from me what has taken place,” she said. 

“ Pardon me,” he replied, “ but really, is it 
I who is imagining things, or is it you? 
What has taken place? ” 

Miss Coryn felt she must, at all hazards, 
get out of this corner. 

“ That,” she answered, “ you may ask the 
hotel portier or the chef de gave at Lou- 
ville. Do you think,” she continued, play- 
ing her new game recklessly, “ that a com- 
mon flirtation in public places is not known 


IC 6 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


But Arnold interrupted her. 

“ Miss Coryn,” he said, with a dignified 
displeasure in his tone, “ what you are say- 
ing, or about to say, is said against Miss 
Crothers as much as against me. I do not 
think that you, any more than I, wish to 
compromise her in this argument.” 

Miss Coryn was compelled to feel that she 
had underrated her antagonist, and that she 
would not mate him in this game at any 
rate. She proposed a draw. 

“ Mr. Hamilton,” she said, not without 
dignity and composure of manner, “ this is 
a subject which we need not discuss further 
at present. Perhaps some other time. Good- 
afternoon.” 

“ As you wish, Miss Coryn. Good-after- 
noon.” 

It had not been a long game, and he al- 
most wished his opponent had played better. 
He had practically won all through. He 
felt quite pleased with himself. It did not 
occur to him that a victory is sometimes 
more dangerous than a defeat. 

That evening Miss Coryn wrote a letter to 


“MILITIA SPECIES AMOR EST” 107 


her brother-in-law, Colonel Crothers. The 
letter was as follows : — 

“Dear Gerald, — I was glad to get Kate’s letter, 
and to hear that Ethel is getting on. I am also glad 
that Margaret’s coming did her sister so much 
good, for I miss her here. I just wanted her to go 
with me to Badheim, and had fixed we should start 
this week. Of course, man proposes and God dis- 
poses, but it’s most irritating to have to alter one’s 
plans. 

“I don’t suppose Margaret will be able to come 
back for the present, and as it may be some time 
before I am able to come to England and see you, I 
think I should let Kate and you know of some- 
thing I have just discovered here. A young man 
called Hamilton, a Scotch artist, I believe, if there 
is such a thing, has, I am ashamed to say, been car- 
rying on with her as they never should have done, 
and never could have done, if I had not been obliged 
to spend most of the day in my room. My rheuma- 
tism has been worse than ever; I must go and take 
those tiresome mud-baths again. They have been 
together every day; he went to see her off, and they 
parted like two common lovers, giving each other 
flowers, and so on. I never thought such things of 
Margaret — with a stranger in a hotel. It is too 
disgusting. At any rate, now you know of it. 

“ With love, etc. — Your affect, sister, 

“Elizabeth Coryn.” 


V II IN THE 

All COLONEL'S LIBRARY 


T HE master of Broadfields was sitting 
in his library. His face was an un- 
healthy white, his eyes were rest- 
less and apprehensive, and his fingers were 
playing nervously with his moustache. His 
daughter upstairs was progressing favor- 
ably; it was not on her account he was 
anxious. He was certainly not in love. His 
conscience had no longer power to depress 
him with remorse. His was the other 
trouble: he was in debt. 

Colonel Crothers had run through the 
greater part of two competent fortunes — 
liis own and his wife’s. He liked style, kept 
up an expensive establishment, and made 
things worse in trying to make them better 
by Stock-Exchange speculations. He was 
also a betting man, and had no luck. Lately 
things had become rather serious. He man- 
108 


IN THE COLONEL’S LIBRARY 109 


aged to get himself appointed to the direc- 
torate of several boards, and earned his 
guineas regularly; but, though his ignor- 
ance was extensive, the number of such 
appointments that he could secure was lim- 
ited. Matters came indeed to such a pass 
that for the last two or three years the 
owner of Broadfields was kept afloat only 
by the generosity of his wealthy neighbor, 
Sir George Hessle. Colonel Crothers had, 
in earlier days, shown considerable kind- 
ness to Sir George’s younger brother, who 
had been a subaltern in his regiment and 
died in Afghanistan, and the baronet— un- 
married and not close-handed — had re- 
peatedly advanced to him large sums on 
easy terms. This had carried Crothers 
along, but it did not extricate him. He had 
more than once had to make excuse for not 
duly implementing his side of the arrange- 
ment, and on the last occasion Sir George 
was not quite pleasant about it. And now, 
two days before, he had been again com- 
pelled to write saying he could not imme- 
diately repay a sum which fell due that 


1IO LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


morning. The Colonel was now waiting for 
the answer. Hence this gloom. 

The butler entered with the letter-bag. 
His master always opened it himself. The 
man waited to see if there were any to take 
upstairs. 

“ You can leave them all here,” said the 
Colonel ; “ the ladies are in Miss Ethel's 
room at present.” 

The butler departed, and the Colonel 
opened the bag and looked over his letters. 
A bill — the Daily Telegraph — an advertise- 
ment about a trousers-press — the letter from 
Miss Coryn — the Sporting and Dramatic — 
one or two more dunning bills. It was an 
ordinary lot, except for a line from a former 
brother officer enclosing a five-pound note 
for an old bet he had almost forgotten. Col- 
onel Crothers turned them all over again. 
No : there was no letter from Sir George. 

He was just about to read Miss Coryn's 
letter when sounds of dog-cart wheels were 
heard at the front door. In a few moments 
the butler announced a visitor — a little man, 
who seemed somewhat excited. 


IN THE COLONEL’S LIBRARY hi 


“ Sir George Hessle, sir ! ” 

Colonel Crothers felt the worst had come, 
and got green. For something to say, he 
called out after the servant — 

“ Johnson, bring the brandy and some 
soda in here.” 

It was a most uncomfortable three or 
four minutes till Johnson returned, and 
then the Colonel and his visitor were left 
alone. Crothers was obviously nervous. 
But Sir George speedily relieved his com- 
panion’s mind. 

“ Oh, I got your letter, Crothers,” he 
said ; “ well, never mind about that eight 
hundred, just now. It can wait all right.” 

The Colonel glared with gratitude, and 
began to stutter some half-articulate reply. 

“ The fact is,” Sir George went on, hardly 
waiting for the other’s thanks, “ I want to 
talk to you about something else.” There 
was a pause. “ You see,” he added, some- 
what nervously, “ a man in my position has 
a dislike to be made a fool of.” 

Sir George Hessle always had a profound 
sense of his exalted station. It was this, 


1 12 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


combined with his diminutive stature, which, 
when he was at Christ Church, had gained 
for him the nickname of “ the Point,” since, 
in the words of the Euclidian definition, he 
had “ position but not magnitude.” 

The Colonel began to get uneasy again, 
and filled up another pause with a weak 
“ Yes.” The baronet still hesitated. 

“ A deuced dislike to it,” he repeated at 
last. This was unilluminating. 

“ So have I,” said the Colonel to encour- 
age him. 

“ Well, in this case,” began Sir George 
again, “ I should dislike it particularly. I 
suppose,” he went on, “ I ought to have 
asked to see Mrs. Crothers or even herself 
about it, but I thought Fd be safer to have 
a word with you first. If it doesn’t just 
come off, you’ll keep it dark.” 

“Keep what dark?” The Colonel was 
dull as a male only can be, and had not an 
inkling. 

“ Well, then,” said the other, “ it’s this. 
Do you think that your daughter Margaret 
would become Lady Hessle? ” 


IN THE COLONEL’S LIBRARY 113 

When Colonel Crotliers was excited he 
always glared and spluttered. 

“ My — my — my dear Sir George,” he ex- 
claimed, “ I’ve no doubt ” 

“ I wish I had no doubt,” interrupted the 
baronet unsatisfiedly. “Of course she’s not 
— ah — booked to any one? ” he added. 

“ No.” 

“ Well, that’s one thing. And you think 
she would? You really think so? You see, 
as I said, I don’t want to make a fool of 
myself. I’m standing for the county at the 
coming election, you know, and think of 
the position I should be in before the public 
if she — wouldn’t. You couldn’t sound her 
about it, and let me know? ” 

“ I don’t see that that would do any good. 
Margaret’s a girl that will make up her own 
mind.” 

“ That’s just it. It’s that that makes me 
so confoundedly uncertain.” 

“ But, my dear Sir George, she’s not a 
fool.” 

“ I never said she was.” 

“ Well, she would be a fool if she wouldn’t 


1 14 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

become Lady Hessle. That’s what I 
say.” 

The baronet was still far from comforted, 
but he accepted a proffered brandy and 
soda, and that made the situation grow 
brighter. After a little longer he seemed 
satisfied, and rose to go. 

“ Well, I hope it is all right,” he said. 
“ And remember, Crothers, all this is private 
— as private as those little banking arrange- 
ments between us lately. And as to them, 
well ” 

The Colonel was in the act of taking a 
drink, and his hand trembled so as almost 
to spill it. 

“ — If this gets fixed up all right,” con- 
tinued Sir George, “ we’ll let the other sub- 
ject drop altogether.” 

The Colonel had the narrowest escape 
from choking. The glass dropped on the 
floor. He became crimson with coughing. 
By the time he recovered, his visitor had 
opened the door to go. 

In two or three minutes he was again 
seated alone in his room. His dejection 


IN THE COLONEL’S LIBRARY 115 

was all gone. “ By Jove! ” he said to him- 
self, “ she will and she must.” He added 
a consignment of himself to execution if she 
didn’t. 

With much equanimity he turned again 
to his letters. He put the accounts in a 
drawer contrary to his usual custom, which 
was to put them straight into the fire. Then 
he took up Miss Coryn’s letter, which he 
was just beginning when his visitor had 
entered. He read it carefully, but it did not 
greatly perturb him. The Colonel had not 
a very strong imaginative faculty, and this 
Arnold Hamilton, merely written of from 
afar-away Rosenwald, seemed a very vision- 
ary and unimportant fact in comparison 
with Sir George Hessle, Bart., of Trentham 
Hall, whose bodily presence had just left 
the room. 

But a sort of instinct — an animal scent of 
danger — made his eyes fall on a letter ad- 
dressed to his daughter Margaret, which 
lay, with some other letters for Mrs. Croth- 
ers, on the table. He saw it bore a Swiss 
stamp. He took it up and read the Rosen- 


ii 6 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


wald post-mark. Rosenwald seemed to have 
come into the room as palpably as Tren- 
tham. The Colonel’s imagination awoke. 
He became preternaturally acute. He 
turned the letter over and over, and the 
more he turned it the more he was sure from 
whom it came. 

And the physical sensation of turning it 
made him feel that he must do something 
with it. He became unable to lay it down. 
By the same physical process, he seemed to 
become oblivious of the fact that it was not 
his. Every time that thought occurred to 
him, he re-fingered the letter till the thought 
died. 

Colonel Gerald Crothers was not natur- 
ally a dishonorable man. He had been an 
officer and a gentleman. But difficulties 
about money either ennoble or demean a 
man. They had demeaned him. And when 
they demean, they can do so, in suitable 
circumstances, to practically any depth. 

The Colonel read Miss Coryn’s letter a 
second time, and then, with the other letter 
still in his hand, went to the door and locked 


IN THE COLONEL’S LIBRARY 117 

it. He came back to his chair, sat down, 
looked at the letter, paused a minute, turned 
it, opened it, and read it. It was Arnold’s 
letter. 

His face grew red with not excitement, 
but a kind of fear. His breath came quickly, 
as if he had been running. He deliberated 
only a moment. He took the letter and 
envelope to the mantelpiece, placed them on 
an ashtray, lit a match, and set them on 
fire. He watched the paper burn to black- 
ness, and then threw the crisp, crimpling 
remains into the grate. The ash-tray was 
almost too hot to hold, and he burnt his 
fingers in doing it. 

“Well, it had to be done; anyhow now, 
it is done.” 

He had just taken another drink when 
his wife and daughter came along the pas- 
sage. He opened the door, and called Mrs. 
Crothers to come in. 

“ Any letters, father? ” asked Margaret. 

“ None for you,” he answered, already 
behind the door, which he shut almost in 
her face. 


1 1 8 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


He told his wife all Sir George had said. 
They agreed it was better not to mention 
the subject to Margaret Mrs. Crothers 
seemed satisfied. He neither showed her 
Miss Coryn’s letter nor mentioned the other. 
He was in excellent spirits all day. 


Yin in the 

Alll GARDEN 


T HE lawn at Broadfields lay luxuriat- 
ing in the rich sunshine of a perfect 
August day. The shadows of the 
trees dappled the grass and invited to re- 
pose beneath their shade. The bees hummed 
drowsily, and the sound of the mowing- 
machine alone broke the silence. 

Under a large beech, Ethel was lying in 
a long chair. This was the first day she 
had been out since her illness. She was a 
harmony of tinted whites. A pearly shawl 
concealed her hair; her cheeks had still an 
invalid’s pallor, and her hands were almost 
transparent. Margaret was sitting beside 
her. The girls talked only at times: Ethel 
still needed rest. She drank in the air and 
light like a flower. Overhead a robin was 
loudly singing. 

“ Margey,” said the convalescent, after a 

119 


120 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


long silence, “ listen to that bird. It’s sing- 
ing for me. Oh, how thankful I am to be 
out again ! Do you know I think religion is 
more than anything else just being thank- 
ful?” 

“ Yes,” replied Margaret quietly. 

“ And, I suppose,” continued Ethel, “ that 
one would never be thankful if one never 
had any trouble — illness, or anything of that 
kind. Of course one should be all the more, 
but I’m sure I shouldn’t be.” 

“ We’re all very thankful to see you 
better,” said Margaret. It was not a very 
direct answer. Before this illness, the elder 
sister had always been the leader and 
teacher of the younger in their talks about 
inward things, but Margaret felt that now 
Ethel had hold of far more than she had. 

“ I was very ill?” said the younger girl 
after a pause. 

“Yes, darling, you were.” 

“ Did they think I was going to die? ” 

“ Well, you were very critically ill ; but 
that’s past now.” 

“ O Margey, I was too young to die. 


IN THE GARDEN 


1 2 1 


There is so much to know and do yet. Some- 
times I thought myself I wasn’t going to 
get better. And there were so many things 
I hadn’t seen yet, or read, or done. I didn’t 
mind dying because I was afraid of it, but 
because of what I would miss. And do you 
know T what I used to think then?” 

“ What? ” 

“ I used to think of you, Margey, and 
that you were going to live, and you would 
see everything and be far wiser and better 
than ever I should be; and then I thought 
that I loved you so much that somehow 
when you were in it all, I was sharing in 
it too. Oh, it sounds stupid nonsense now 
that I’m out and well again, but I can’t tell 
you how I took hold of it when I thought 
that my life was — slipping away.” 

“ My darling Ethel, God is letting us live 
together here yet.” Margaret bent nearer 
her sister. 

“ Do you know, Margey,” continued 
Ethel, with a quiet earnestness of manner, 
“ it’s easy speaking of God, but I can’t find 
God except in the things I know and love, 


122 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


and these are in this world. I know it’s 
very wrong, but I really almost hated 
Canon Hanson when he kept telling me that 
to depart was ‘ far better/ ” 

Margaret looked a mild reproof. 

“ But I did,” said Ethel. “ I wanted to 
understand it and believe it, but I didn’t 
know anybody that made it true. His say- 
ing it made it all false and just words. I’m 
sure he wouldn’t think it better.” 

Is there any severity that is more piercing 
than that of the purely simple in mind? 

“ O Margey,” Ethel went on in a different 
tone, “ if only you could have told me some- 
thing about these things.” 

Margaret’s eyes filled with tears. 

“ My dear Ethel,” she said, “ you have 
been learning far more about these things 
than I know about them.” 

“ I have not learned anything except that 
they are the things worth learning,” said 
Ethel. 

“ We shall begin to learn them together,” 
replied Margaret. Then they were silent 
again for a while. 


IN THE GARDEN 


123 


Soon after EtkeFs nurse came out, and 
the convalescent went into the house again. 

It was later in the same day, and Mar- 
garet was sitting alone in the same place. 
She was plunged in thought; her sister’s 
appeal had deeply moved her. And it led 
her to think of Arnold, and she wondered 
what he would say on these subjects. Then 
she wondered where he was, and why he had 
never written to her. He had asked per- 
mission to write, and that was more than 
a fortnight ago. She could not help feeling 
that they had lost hold of each other. She 
tried to recall him and things that he had 
said. In some particulars her recollection 
was a little blurred. This was really only 
because the engrossing anxieties of the sick- 
room had prevented her Rosenwald impres- 
sions from being quietly confirmed in the 
memory, but the cause of it seemed to her 
deeper. Was not this just the way of things? 
“ Feet, feelings must descend the hill.” 
Rosenwald already seemed to be in a past, 
and the succeeding days would make that 
past only more distant. Yet might they 


124 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


not have held on to one another? If only 
he had written, that would have begun a 
bond. To him too was it all of the past? 
She remembered his metaphor about the 
hail of a passing ship. Margaret felt that 
she and Arnold were like two vessels that 
had drifted together in a calm and had be- 
spoken each other for a day, and in the 
morning found themselves carried by di- 
verging currents over the broadening 
waters. Is not life like the sea — pathless, 
but full of currents? 

Hers were sad thoughts. The fact was, 
Margaret was worn out. 

And in a little she fell asleep. 

How long she had slept she did not know, 
when a footstep on the walk roused her. 
She opened her eyes and found Sir George 
Hessle standing beside her. She flushed at 
having been so discovered, and he noticed 
it with unconcealed admiration. He also 
attributed it to deeper feelings at his ap- 
proach, and took courage to deliver a sen- 
tence he had composed, while watching her, 
as an effective opening. 


IN THE GARDEN 


125 

“ I fear I disturb a beautiful dream,” he 
said — “ certainly a beautiful dreamer.” 

“ Not at all. I’m much obliged to you 
for awaking me, for it must be tea-time.” 

Sir George could hardly keep up the ro- 
mantic vein after such a matter-of-fact re- 
ply. Indeed, the conversation drifted on to 
the condition of the grouse moors. He felt 
it was becoming impossible to do it that 
day. Wouldn’t a man, he reflected, look 
rather a fool if he broke into a talk about 
grouse with a proposal of marriage? 

After a while Margaret rose and asked 
him if he would not come into the house and 
see her father and mother. 

“ I have just been with them,” he replied. 
Then by some sudden impulse — for he had 
quite made up his mind not to do it — he 
found himself in another sentence. “ I have 
not seen the lady’s walk this year, Miss 
Crothers ; I wonder if you would show it to 
me just now? ” 

She was surprised, but could hardly re- 
fuse, and the two wended their way down a 
shaded path. Colonel and Mrs. Crothers 


126 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


watched their disappearance from the li- 
brary window. 

Not five minutes later, her father, who 
had remained watching, suddenly grew 
white and ejaculated a cry of surprise and 
fear. His wife came to the window. They 
saw their daughter crossing the lawn alone, 
her face aflame, her brow knit. She was 
walking very fast. 

“ Kate ! ” cried the Colonel, “ she hasn’t 
refused him ! ” 

The sound of a vehicle being rapidly 
driven away told them that Sir George had 
gone. 


YT\/“AS love should lead 
A1 V ME, OR AS DUTY URGED ” 

W HEN Margaret reached the house 
she was about to go straight up- 
stairs, but her mother called her 
into the library, and she obeyed. 

“ Something is the matter, Margaret? ” 
said Mrs. Crothers. 

The girl was about to evade the question, 
feeling disinclined to make a confidante of 
her mother in her father’s presence. The 
Colonel was standing at the window with a 
look as if he were about to explode. His 
wife’s expression was quiet but troubled. 
Divining from their manner that both her 
parents practically knew what had hap- 
pened she answered her mother’s question 
frankly. 

“ Sir George Hessle was asking me to 
marry him.” 

“And?” burst in the Colonel, for she 
paused. 


127 


128 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ And I did not let him go on.” 

“ Why? ” he almost shrieked. 

“ Why? ” replied Margaret quietly and 
slowly. “ Because I did not feel that I cared 
enough for him.” 

“ Did not feel you cared enough,” he re- 
peated with rough scorn. Then he lost all 
self-control. “ Margaret, you’re a fool ! 
You’ve lost the best chance of your life. 
And do you know what more you’ve done? 
You’ve ruined your father.” 

“ What do. you mean?” she answered, 
amazed. 

But Colonel Crothers meant to be dra- 
matic, and, banging the door, left the room. 

The mother and daughter were alone. 
Mrs. Crothers’ face was still troubled. 

“ Mother,” said Margaret, “ you are not 
angry with me? Surely I couldn’t do any- 
thing else.” 

“ Not angry, dear; no. But ” 

“ But what? Mother, when I don’t love 
him?” 

Mrs. Crothers’ eyes suffused with tears. 
To her, love was a dream to be cherished 


“AS LOVE SHOULD LEAD ME” 129 


rather than a duty to be asserted. She had 
her ideals, but life seemed made to disregard 
them, and she could do little more than give 
them the homage of her tears. Seeing her, 
Margaret was troubled too. 

“ Tell me, mother,” she said, kneeling be- 
side her, “did you want me to marry Sir 
George? ” 

Mrs. Crothers stroked her daughter’s hair 
tenderly. She remembered how often she 
had tended that hair when Margaret was a 
little child. Those were easier and — though 
not perfectly happy — happier days! 

“ I thought you would be happy at Trent- 
liain,” she answered at last. 

“ But,” cried Margaret again, “ when I 
do not love him.” 

Her mother looked at her wistfully. Her 
own life came before her. Her memory 
went back beyond Margaret’s days. Her 
first and her only true love rose before her 
— a young officer who had been killed at the 
front. She recalled her refusal of several 
offers that she might be true to that memory. 
Then at last her yielding, her marriage, and 


130 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


all that that had since meant. Her thoughts 
seemed to begin to become sinful, and she 
checked them. 

Ah, it is a tragedy indeed to be afraid to 
look into the mirror of memory for fear of 
seeing in it love’s ghost! 

But again Mrs. Crothers answered her 
daughter quietly and revealed to her little 
of her thoughts. 

“ My dear child,” she said, still stroking 
her hair, “ he would be good and honorable. 
He would not be unkind to you.” 

Margaret looked up to her. 

“ Good, honorable, not unkind,” she re- 
peated slowly. “ And this is all that is to 
be looked for — good, honorable, not un- 
kind? ” 

The mother did not return her daughter’s 
look. She was, like many a woman whose 
married life is without love, careful not to 
reveal it. But a sense of humiliation crept 
over her haunted heart and almost betrayed 
itself on her face. Could she but speed on 
wings to a distant, lonely grave, and weep 
on it, and then — God close her eyes there! 


“ AS LOVE SHOULD LEAD ME ” 13 1 


The two remained silent. Margaret was 
still kneeling, and her mother still stroking 
her hair. 

Then the door burst open, and the Colonel 
entered again. He was in a state of high, 
nervous agitation, and could not keep away. 
Margaret rose. 

“ Was he angry when he left? ” he de- 
manded abruptly and discourteously. She 
did not answer immediately. “ I ask you,” 
he went on with increasing anger, “ and I 
have my reasons for asking.” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Margaret. 

“ What did he say? ” 

“ Really, father, I don’t think ” 

“ Well, then, don’t tell me. I know 
enough. I know he’s not the man to take a 
public rebuff like this and lie down under 
it.” 

“ A public rebuff? ” 

“ Yes; it’s been talked of as coming, all 
over the district.” 

This from the man who had almost choked 
of surprise when Sir George first hinted at 
it to him! 


1 3a LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


Margaret got into a heat. 

“ No one ever had the smallest reason,” 
she exclaimed indignantly, “ to say a 
word ” 

“ Reason or no reason, people talk. I say 
Hessle will regard this as a public slight, 
and he’ll ” 

“Well, if he does. Surely my hand is 
my own to give or not.” 

“ Hand your own ! Don’t talk sentiment. 
Think what you’ve done. Isn’t Hessle just 
as decent a fellow as you’ll find? Hasn’t 
he, I should say, fifteen thousand a year? 
Isn’t Trentham just the pick place in the 
district? ” 

Margaret made no answer, but gazed at 
him with quiet scorn. Her silence exas- 
perated him to new anger. 

“ Oh, if you’re so high-minded that you 
wouldn’t think of these things for your own 
sake, then you might think a little of other 
people, and I tell you again you’ve ruined 
me to-day.” 

“ You are in his debt? ” said Margaret. 
“Is that what you mean?” 


“ AS LOVE SHOULD LEAD ME ” 133 


“ Yes, that is what I mean.” 

“ And you would sell me to compound 
it? ” She spoke slowly but with restrained 
passion in her blazing eyes. 

The Colonel winced, and beat a retreat. 

“ You can say what you like,” he said 
angrily, and went to the door. “ I’ve nothing 
more to say to you.” And he a second time 
went out banging the door. 

Margaret turned to her mother, and no- 
ticed that the former troubled look had re- 
turned to her face. 

“ Mother,” she said, “ I wish you would 
be frank with me. You did want it? ” 

“ I don’t know, dear,” said Mrs. Crothers ; 
“ I don’t know what your duty is? ” 

Margaret was surprised. But all Mrs. 
Crothers’ weakness and cowardice had re- 
turned upon her while her husband had been 
in the room. The ideal was clear enough; 
but when one really faced the facts, was not 
the safer, wiser course in something lower? 

“ Surely, mother,” said Margaret slowly, 
“ in marrying, one’s duty cannot be apart 
from love.” 


i 3 4 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ My dear child,” replied Mrs. Crothers, 
as it were, reluctantly, “ one must not think 
of only the most ideal duties. There are 
sometimes duties that seem unworthy of 
the name. Yet when we don’t do them, there 
is great unhappiness.” 

It was the practical philosophy of Mrs. 
Crothers’ life. It struck Margaret’s mind 
with a chill. It was new to her, and she did 
not feel able at the moment to answer it. 

“ You mean,” she said, “ that it may be 
really my duty to marry for money.” 

“ No, darling, no,” said Mrs. Crothers 
hastily. “ I mean that Sir George is kind, 
and a man of honor, and he has money with 
it all. That is what I mean.” 

Margaret was silent. 

“ There is nothing dishonorable in that,” 
continued her mother. “ Dear, you were 
too severe to your father. We only wish 
to see you happy. Many people miss happi- 
ness both for themselves and others because 
they seek it too high.” 

Mrs. Crothers spoke sadly. Her heart 
piteously belied her words, but she really 


“ AS LOVE SHOULD LEAD ME ” 135 


believed that slie was saying to Margaret 
what was best for her. How easily the 
timid heart will take safety for truth ! Yet 
no one will make much of life who is not 
prepared at times to run risks in it. From 
the days of Abraham, who went forth not 
knowing whither he went, life, at its noblest, 
is a venture. 

Margaret still remained silent. Her 
mother did not try to force her to speak, but 
rose and took her in her arms, gently kissed 
her, saying, “ Think over it, darling,” and 
left her. She went upstairs and fell upon 
her knees, and wept and prayed. “ O Lord,” 
she murmured, “ I mean the best.” 

Margaret was left alone. 

When the servants went into the drawing- 
room late in the afternoon to take away the 
tea, they were surprised to find it was un- 
touched. “ I fear the guv-ner’s been ’it at 
Kempton,” said Johnson to the footman, 
and took a muffin. 



SHOWING THIS STORY 
HAS NT) HEROINE 


M ARGARET was alone indeed. She 
was alone at the most critical time 
in life. The most critical time in 
life is not when the gusts of youthful pas- 
sion assail; though a soul he struck down 
by these, from such falls there is recovery. 
But there comes to every one the choice of 
what he is going to hold to, not for merely 
some step in life, but for life itself as a 
whole; and it is here that the world has its 
great chance. What it says is this. So long 
as you were deciding simply this episode or 
that in your life, your decisions mattered 
little; an absurd idealism, an impossible 
loyalty, a romantic enthusiasm — to do this 
or that in life under the influence of these 
does no great harm, and is indeed an in- 
teresting experience. But now you are de- 
ciding your life. Think what life is — think 
of ten years, twenty years, all your career — 
136 


THIS STORY HAS NO HEROINE 137 


and is it not plain that a decision about 
that is a very different thing? Episodes 
may be governed by the romantic, even the 
ridiculous ; life must deal with the possible, 
the practical, the prudent. Here an unwise 
judgment is simply to fail to appreciate the 
reality of the question. Here you must not 
make a fool of yourself. Here a Quixotic 
move may lose the game. Therefore, in 
your decision here, you must be wise in this 
world, be shrewd — above all, be safe. Here 
you must keep in their due place illusions, 
enthusiasms, ideals. 

Thus the world and the spirit thereof. It 
will let a man do some acts of reckless gen- 
erosity in his youth ; but, when he comes to 
settle down, bid him seek his own first. It 
will rather encourage a young student in 
free and ardent speculation while he is at 
college; but, when it comes to his turning 
back on account of conscience, from a safe 
career in the Church, it counsels him to be 
more easily satisfied. It will let a girl’s 
heart flame with pure ideals of love, but will 
advise her not to lose a good match from 


13B LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


any silly scruples. The temptations of the 
flesh are sharp and sudden raids that sur- 
prise the soul and seize what spoil they 
may; the world plans and waits for a vic- 
tory that shall mean the annexation of a 
life. 

Margaret knew that at Rosenwald she had 
had a glimpse of truth. The world did not 
deny it. On the contrary, it bid her be 
thankful for it. Make that, it whispered, 
a treasured, sweet, and tender thought in 
your experience. Make it that by all means. 
But — and here the whisper became a threat- 
ening hiss — make it more than that; make 
it your practical direction for your life; 
make it reason for turning away from the 
security and safety which are the solid foun- 
dations of success from, say, thirty onward ; 
and your career will be, in plain language, 
a mistake, a failure, a thing of trouble. If, 
for any such impossible ideal, you throw 
away a future that might have many goods, 
and might bring to others much good — is 
that to do well ? Remember you are dealing 
with that real thing — life. Deal with it 


THIS STORY HAS NO HEROINE 139 

really. Face its facts. Render to ideality 
the things that are ideal and to reality the 
things that are real. 

The struggle in Margaret’s mind lasted 
several days. 

She did not discuss the matter further 
with her mother. Mrs. Crothers felt this, 
and dimly perceived the irretrievable mis- 
take she had made in, when they were little 
ones, leaving her children too much to 
others, thinking that later she would be 
their companion. A mother’s companion- 
ship must be from the beginning. 

Margaret knew whither her heart looked ; 
knew T too — despite Arnold’s silence — that 
true love is always mutual. But in the 
stablished structure of life, there seemed 
to be a settled disregard of this. She sur- 
rendered to what appeared to be force 
majeure. 

She was not aware of it, but her anxieties 
and devotion in the sick-room had really 
unstrung the girl. 

A note had lain in her drawer for five 
days. Partly from a sincere enough ad- 


Ho LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


miration, partly from the desire yet to 
avoid, if possible, a rejection, Sir George 
wrote her, the day after their scene in the 
lady’s walk, and asked if her decision were 
really final. One evening Margaret came 
downstairs with a white face. She met her 
mother in the hall. 

“ Margaret, are you ill ? ” cried Mrs. 
Crothers. 

“ I told you, mother, of Sir George’s 
letter.” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

“ I have just written to him accepting 
him.” Her voice was unnaturally calm. 

“ My dear child — God bless you.” 

“ Forgive me, rather,” said Margaret, and 
she turned away, refusing to be kissed. She 
went up to her room again. An hour later 
her maid found her lying in a faint. 

Meanwhile the Colonel sent off a telegram 
with the news to Miss Coryn and also a 
communication to the press. 

A soft rain was falling. It may have 
been angels’ tears. 


YVI MISS CORYN HAS 
A V 1 HER REVENGE 


E VER since her conversation with Ar- 
nold about her niece, Miss Coryn 
had been far from happy. It had 
confirmed her suspicions that there was 
something between them, but how much she 
did not know. Was the thing going on or 
not? She felt that that conversation had 
done her no good, and had only prevented 
her doing Arnold any further harm. She 
was much troubled. 

One day among her letters was a letter 
from Broadfields, and as she opened it she 
wondered if Arnold at that moment was 
receiving one from the same house. It was 
from Mrs. Crothers, and told Miss Coryn 
about Sir George Hessle’s visit to the Col- 
onel. It only half comforted the good lady. 
Mrs. Crothers wrote in the strain of one 
assuming Margaret’s consent to so excellent 
141 


142 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

a match, and spoke of the marriage almost 
as if it were already a fixed thing. Miss 
Coryn had more knowledge of human 
nature, and was not accustomed to believe 
in anything before she saw it. It was hard 
to say whether the thought of Sir George 
more relieved her anxieties or increased 
them. It might be the very thing to bring 
this Hamilton affair to a point. 

She was pondering what she should do, 
for do something she felt she must, when 
there presented himself before her a dis- 
tinguished-looking, faultlessly attired and 
excellently preserved elderly gentleman. 
He took off his hat with admirable courtesy 
of manner and greeted her. 

“ Ah, my dear Miss Coryn ! ” 

“ Count Orloff ! ” she replied in surprise. 

He was a Russian whom she had met 
several times in her continental travels. He 
spoke English excellently, as all educated 
Russians do. 

“ I am delighted to see my old friend , 1 ” 
he said gaily. 

“ How gallant your adjective is, Count, 1 ” 


MISS CORYN HAS REVENGE 143 

she replied half offendedly, yet half af- 
fectedly. 

“ Ah,” he answered, “ I say my old friend. 
I, who have found the world so faithless and 
forgetting, may surely call that friendship 
old that I have had now for — five years, is 
it not; five years since that evening at Nice, 
you remember, when we met? ” 

They exchanged old memories. 

“And now we meet again. Ah, our 
meeting is not mere accident ; is it? ” 

It was the Count’s favorite remark to 
persons of the other sex whom he wished to 
impress. He had just come from saying it 
with great feeling to a German schoolgirl 
with her hair in a pigtail down her back. 
The schoolgirl felt, with delicious awe, that 
her fate must have come. But Miss Coryn 
was not sentimental, and probably she had 
heard the remark before. 

“ No,” she replied, “ it is not. I want 
your advice. I want advice from some one 
who knows two things: the ways of the 
world ” 


The Count bowed slightly. 


i 4 4 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ — And the ways of love.” 

He made a deprecating gesture. 

“ My dear lady,” he said, “ there you will 
be my teacher.” 

“ Count,” she said, “ Fm serious. I want 
to stop a certain love-affair, and don’t know 
how.” 

The Count had a natural taste for in- 
trigue of any kind, and was a lover of gossip. 
He became all attention. Miss Coryn told 
him the tale to the end, including her talk 
with Arnold. 

“ Now,” she concluded, “ what shall I 
do? ” 

“ May I speak with freedom to Miss 
Coryn?” he answered. 

“ Certainly. I think you have sometimes 
done so in the past.” 

“ Ah, I may have taken the freedom to 
praise ; but may I venture to take the greater 
freedom to — pardon me — blame? ” 

“ What have I done wrong? ” 

“ Everything, my dear Miss Coryn. What 
have you gained by quarreling with this 
man? You have stopped nothing. Perhaps 


MISS CORYN HAS REVENGE 145 


you have stirred him to energy. You should 
have remained his friend, become his con- 
fidante, and then, as a friend, shown him 
it was hopeless, or somehow put other 
thoughts in his head. Always be your 
enemy’s friend — it is a sure rule — if you 
would outdo him.” 

“ Your system has at least one eminent 
exemplar,” said Miss Coryn, with some 
scorn in her voice. Her English dislike of 
treachery was awakened for a moment by 
his cynicism. 

“ Who? ” he asked. 

“ Judas,” she replied. 

He concealed his feelings, and made no 
answer. The subject dropped, and soon 
after the Count took his leave. 

“ These English hypocrites,” he reflected 
as he went off. “ She professes to rebuke 
me for speaking of it, but, when the time 
comes, she’ll do the thing all the same. 
That’s England all over — the genuine Down- 
ing Street article.” And the old diplomat 
twisted his white moustache with indigna- 
tion. 


146 love never faileth 


Meanwhile Miss Coryn thought it over, 
and later in the day Arnold was surprised 
to receive a courteously worded request 
from her to speak with her again. 

If during these days Miss Coryn’s mind 
had been ill at ease, still more so had Ar- 
nold’s. He had had no answer to his letter. 
Was Ethel worse again? Was Margaret 
herself ill? She could not be offended? She 
could not have forgotten him? His heart 
did not know how to answer these questions. 
They became a torment to him. 

So very willingly he responded to Miss 
Coryn’s request, hoping, at least, that he 
might learn some facts. She received him 
in a not unfriendly way, and her opening 
words surprised him by their courteous- 
ness. 

“ It is kind of you to come, Mr. Hamil- 
ton,” she said. “ I have often wished to 
resume that unfortunate conversation of 
ours.” 

As he responded only with a bow, she had 
to go on. 


MISS CORYN HAS REVENGE 147 


“ I say unfortunate because it ended with- 
out our reaching the main point. For that, 
I blame myself, not you, Mr. Hamilton.” 

“ I hope,” replied Arnold, “ you will not 
think there was any fault in the matter.” 

“ Well,” continued Miss Coryn, “ if there 
was fault on my part, I had a reason for 
my indignation. I hardly wished to speak 
of it to you, but as it has been confirmed 
this morning, I think it is my duty, as one 
who wishes you no ill, to hide it from you 
no longer.” 

“ Yes,” was all his reply. 

Miss Coryn was in some hesitation. She 
was not sure about playing Sir George 
Hessle’s name as a card till she knew some- 
thing of her opponent’s hand. What if he 
could trump it? What if really he were 
engaged to Margaret? She felt she must 
find out his hand, and she resolved to try 
and do it openly. 

“ Mr. Hamilton,” she said in studiously 
courteous tones, “ will you allow me to ask 
you a question which would be impertinent 


148 love never faileth 

were it not prompted both by a legitimate 
interest in my niece, and also, I assure you, 
a concern for yourself?” 

Arnold thought this was rather a studied 
speech, and accordingly became a little sus- 
picious. He replied merely by, “ What is 
the question?” 

Miss Coryn felt she had been too quick. 
She was not a bad player, but had the fault 
women often have in games — she was too 
keen to win rapidly. She should have drawn 
him on. But there was no help for it now, 
and she replied at once. 

“ The question is this : Is there any en- 
gagement between my niece and you?” 

Arnold threw himself back in his chair 
and looked at Miss Coryn. She did not like 
the straight look in his eyes. 

“ Miss Coryn,” he replied, after a moment, 
“it is plain you would not have come to 
me to get an answer to this question if your 
niece had made a confidante of you. As 
Miss Crothers has not seen fit to do so, I 
cannot see, with great personal respect, that 


MISS CORYN HAS REVENGE 149 


this question is one you should ask me, or 
that I need be expected to answer.” 

“ I conclude from your declining to an- 
swer,” said Miss Coryn, admiring her own 
cleverness, “ that there is such an engage- 
ment.” 

“ Every human being is responsible for 
his own conclusions,” said Arnold, with 
entire equanimity and good-humor. 

Miss Coryn felt baffled, and began to feel 
angry. She took the aggressive. 

“ Your reply,” she said, controlling her 
voice, “ is natural, but if you knew the rea- 
son why I asked you that question, I think 
you would judge it a sufficient one.” 

Arnold did not ask her the reason. She 
thought he would almost certainly have 
asked it; that he did not, made her think 
he was afraid. 

“ The reason is,” she continued, for she 
had to continue, “ that I had good reason 
a week ago to believe, and now I know for 
a fact, that Miss Crothers is not ” 


She hesitated. It was not of design, but 


150 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


it accomplished what her designs had failed 
to do. An evident anxiety came into Ar- 
nold’s face. The poor fellow was dying for 
news. 

“ Is not what? ” he asked at length, for 
she prolonged the pause, seeing its effect. 
She then played her card with some confi- 
dence. 

“ Not free to give her hand to you.” 

It struck Arnold like a blow in the face. 
She saw this, though he immediately re- 
covered. He replied with something like 
hauteur. 

“ I should hardly be polite, Miss Coryn,” 
he said, “ if I said what I think of that 
statement. I ask your permission to say 
good-afternoon.” 

It was not a strong speech. She saw he 
was a good deal perturbed. She felt sure 
that if she pursued her advantage, the game 
would be hers yet. 

“ Mr. Hamilton,” she replied, “ this is too 
serious a matter to be dismissed in this way. 
I do not complain that you will not believe 
me. Perhaps you will believe her mother.” 


MISS CORYN HAS REVENGE 151 

She handed him Mrs. Crothers’ letter. 
His impulse was not to take it. But in his 
desire to know something about Margaret, 
he could not help himself. He had risen as 
he asked Miss Coryn’s permission to go, and 
now he read the letter standing. As he read 
it his face grew white. It spoke of the mar- 
riage with Sir George as if the whole thing 
were fixed and, even already, a fait accom- 
pli. Miss Coryn watched his face, and be- 
gan to feel she was having her revenge. 

While he was still reading, the hotel por- 
tier approached her with a telegram. She 
took it and opened it. It was Colonel 
Crothers’ telegram, and read thus : “ Mar- 
garet engaged Hessle.” 

She held the ace of trumps! 

She let him finish the letter. He returned 
it without a word. 

“ That is from Margaret’s mother,” she 
said. 

“ It is not from Margaret,” he replied. It 
was the first time her Christian name had 
passed his lips. He felt as if it was an 
assertion of his claim upon her. 


152 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Miss Coryn looked at him. She knew she 
had him in her power, and enjoyed to know 
it. Then she played. 

“ You have yourself seen,” she said 
slowly, “ that this telegram has just ar- 
rived. You are welcome to read it.” 

She gave it him. He read it at a glance. 
His face was now white as a sheet, but he 
stood up to his fate like a man. He handed 
back the telegram without a word. 

Miss Coryn could be cruel in her hour of 
triumph. 

“ I hope, Mr. Hamilton,” she said, with 
just a touch of vindictive sarcasm in her 
voice, “ that you understand now both my 
indignation and my question. There was 
ground for them, was there not? ” 

He did not answer. 

“ I hope also,” she continued, “ that you 
will see that I have acted as your friend in 
thus letting you know the facts.” 

u Friendship and facts are things not 
quickly to be decided upon,” replied Ar- 
nold, and he turned away. 

Miss Coryn was left with her revenge. 


Y\/n THE PHYSICAL geog- 
A V 1 1 RAPHY OF A POEM 


A RNOLD was hard hit. The blow was 
so sudden and so straight to the 
heart that his being reeled under it. 
He did not know whither to look. He was 
about to enter the hotel, but turned and set 
off up a mountain road. 

All day the weather had been close and 
sultry. A storm was brewing. As Arnold 
started, the first drop of a thunder-plump 
fell with almost a splash. The air became 
unbearably oppressive. An unnatural ap- 
prehensive stillness lay upon everything. 
The clouds were black and big with threat- 
ening. Then a fierce flash came, and in a 
few moments the tempest burst upon the 
valley. 

He rejoiced in it. He did not want to 
think. He watched the grand spectacle 
absorbedly. The sky was lurid lead; the 
153 


154 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


rain was torrential ; the lightning struck the 
peaks as with an angry, living hand, and 
the thunder reverberated endlessly among 
the mountains. The sense of magnificent 
natural forces in imposing operation was 
superb. Man seemed a mere insect — his 
dreams, his sorrows, his efforts, but trifles 
before these elemental powers. Arnold felt 
a strange exaltation in it all, and sat with 
the gods in their titanic sport. The spec- 
tacular grandeur, the startling wildness, the 
sheer material energy of the scene trans- 
ported him above his griefs. He stood bare- 
headed on a rocky knoll, and “ his spirit 
drank the spectacle.” 

The storm, while it lasted, was magnifi- 
cent; but it was brief and soori began to 
pass. The air sensibly cooled, the lightning 
became less frequent, and the thunder rolled 
sullenly further away among the hills. Only 
the rain continued unabated and descended 
still in torrents. Arnold was of course 
drenched. 

Gradually it dawned upon him that, in- 
stead of being an Olympian assisting at the 


THE GEOGRAPHY OF A POEM 155 

play of elemental forces, he was a mere man 
in a soaked tweed coat, wet to the skin, and 
with considerable likelihood of getting a 
severe cold. He took off his cap and wrung 
it, and the water poured in a stream. 

Then it occurred to him that he was a fool 
for other reasons than that he was getting 
very wet. He felt he could wring his heart 
very much as he had wrung his cap. 

It was rather a descent for an Olympian, 
but, from more than one point of view, only 
one verdict on himself seemed possible. He 
stopped in his walk and uttered it aloud — 

“ An utter ass ! ” 

The expletive seemed to relieve him, and, 
with a burst of bitter laughter, he resumed 
his way. He rather welcomed the rain now 
as the supporter of his own view of himself. 
As he tramped along the sodden road, in the 
squelching mud and amid the steady down- 
pour, he felt almost happy and at home. He 
encouraged his pace by singing snatches of 
songs and shouting verses. Arnold knew a 
good deal of poetry by heart— too much of 
it, perhaps, of a melancholy, cynical kind. 


156 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

One sonnet of Heine’s fitted especially into 
his mood that day, and more than once he 
burst out with — 

“ Und wenn das Herz im Leibe ist zerissen, 
Zerissen und zerschmitten und zerstochen, 

Dann bleibt uns doch das schone, gelle Laclien.” 

In the last line his heart seemed to find the 
bitter anodyne for its pain. He recalled 
another time he had sung German songs — 
the day when he had put her rose in water 
and had sung — 

Doch Liebe bliiht in Ewigkeit, 

Das wisse! 

Well, now he “ knew ” ; and knowledge is 
good even when it is bitter. 

From singing verses he fell to making of 
them. As has appeared, Arnold had an 
occasional habit of composing — the habit 
that had prompted, for example, “ The Fos- 
ter-Mother.” His surging emotions carved 
the same channel for their outlet now and 
began to find expression in these lines — 


THE GEOGRAPHY OF A POEM 157 

And so our love is nothing but a tale. 

Sweet in the telling, but now told, and we 
Who fondly thought to write for ever, see 
The volume close, and find the story stale. 

He was about to continue in the same poor 
strain, w T hen suddenly he realized that the 
rain was ceasing and the storm was being 
succeeded by an evening and a sunset of 
surpassing loveliness. It arrested his 
thoughts. Instinctively it recalled to him 
that other evening when Margaret and he 
had walked in the wood. The memory 
touched his heart for a moment, but only a 
moment. He continued thus — 

Yes, it was love — a thing that seemed to be 
A richness that could never half be spent ; 

But now I know a woman’s faith is meant 
For but the season, not eternity. 

The harshness of the last lines awoke 
something of a protest in his heart, and he 
hesitated to go on. He was checked, too, by 
the sheer beauty of the scene. The snow- 
hills stood out clear once more, and every 


158 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


moment grew warmer with the Alpine glow. 
The distant valley was a blended haze of 
rich purples. The western sky was gor- 
geously on fire. The storm had quite passed 
and an air of sweetness reigned around. 
The smoke rose calm and straight from the 
chalets; the tinkle of the cow-bells came 
pleasantly down the fields. It was a sym- 
phony of beauty and of peace. 

Arnold, always sensitive to nature, felt 
his bitterness charmed away. He thought 
again of that other evening, and lived again 
its unforgotten hours. Nothing could now 
alter that. Nothing could make it other 
than what it had been — a glimpse of truth 
and beauty, a draught of life. In his pov- 
erty, yet he was rich. His life had a per- 
ennial, a perishableless good. Should he in 
a mood of bitterness throw that away? He 
became ashamed of his verses — ashamed of 
both their want of poetic inspiration and 
their disloyalty to his own heart. He con- 
tinued, but in a new strain, and the result 
almost surprised himself — 


THE GEOGRAPHY OF A POEM 159 

" Yes, it was love ” — I hold to that, I say ! 

Then if it was, it is, and it shall be. 

Love never faileth! Love hath destiny! 

And what is life hut to hold on Love’s way? 

The last lines came to him almost unsought, 
and they turned his thoughts into yet an- 
other channel. 

He had been thinking only of himself — 
of his own wrong and disappointment and 
bitterness. Shall he not think too of her? 
Was not “ the pity of it ” just that she had 
done it — she who had saved him from his 
worse and called him to his better self? His 
mind dwelt again on the true Margaret, and 
his love awoke, earnest to help, ready to re- 
deem. 

He did not pretend that she had not 
played false to her true self in playing false 
to him. Arnold knew he was unworthy in 
many things. He was unworthy to be her 
ordeal. He did not blame her, but he made 
no false excuses. He thought only of truth’s 
verdict. And that Margaret, to whom he 
owed his very soul, should ever be judged 


160 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


for having failed to be true — that stirred 
him to the depths. 

His mind jerked out thoughts in little 
jets. 

Who would judge her? Who could that 
knew herself? He knew what she had been 
to him. That he would hold against a cen- 
tury of censors. Who dared say she had 
ruined a life? Had she not been to him a 
very salvation? All his life’s good — all 
noble purpose, all brave resolve in him — 
dated from her. But she had blighted them? 
No, it was not so. He would prove it never 
so. These would be yet realized, and his 
life would show it — show it that she had 
saved a soul, not ruined one. Then he 
would defy Heaven itself to condemn her! 

He felt like a sailor who has been drift- 
ing under a dark sky, but on whom at last 
the sun bursts out and enables him to take 
his reckoning and set his course. 

His life, that seemed to have fallen to 
pieces, found again a future, a meaning, an 
ideal. His love, that had been crucified, rose 
again from the grave. 


THE GEOGRAPHY OF A POEM 161 


He was no longer a pagan Olympian, ex- 
alting merely in the material magnificence 
of the brute-energy of nature. As never be- 
fore, he felt in touch with the springs of 
spiritual life and the things by which the 
souls of men live. He had a glimpse of the 
end of life : the end of life is to be a means. 
He began to see it, to believe it — that he 
that loseth his life shall find it. Ah, how 
difficult it is to realize that word ; but when 
it is realized, how many things it makes 
plain ! 

As he walked back, Arnold finished his 
poem. His mind was clear and his soul 
calm; the lines of two concluding stanzas 
came easily — 

And now, at last, what is Love’s way, I see : 

All the high hopes and aims to be and do 
That Love has shown me, I shall yet pursue. 

Will yet achieve, for Love’s sake and for thee. 

So, when the angels shall thy life unroll, 

And if they, judging, seem about to say, 

“ This woman broke her faith ” — ah, then I may 
Have answer ready : u But she saved a soul ! ” 

The flesh wins merely victories : the spirit 
may be victor even in defeats! 


YVTTI IN WHICH ANOTHER 
A V 111 LETTER IS BURNT 
AND THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 

M ARGARET had more than fainted. 

She had also, in falling, severely 
sprained her ankle, and could not 
move without agony. And, besides all that, 
she was in a state of strange feverishness 
and nervousness very unlike herself. The 
girl, who had rarely had a day’s sickness in 
her life, seemed quite unstrung. 

Her mother was anxious, “ She’s really 
ill,” she said to her husband. 

“ She’s run herself down nursing Ethel,” 
he replied. “ Send for Hobson.” 

When Dr. Hobson came he ordered that 
she should be kept very quiet, and free from 
all kind of worry. 

But neither nurses nor doors could ac- 
complish that. Margaret would not rest, 
and seemed to worry incessantly. She tried 
162 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 163 


several times to get up to go into her 
boudoir for something, but she could not. 
In vain her maid sought to induce her to 
lie still, and offered to find anything for 
her she wanted. Margaret shook her head, 
and continued to worry herself to weari- 
ness. They had never known her like this. 
She was far more ill than was accounted for 
by her nursing of Ethel. 

In the morning her sister came in to visit 
her. Margaret hardly answered her greet- 
ing, but burst out to her at once whenever 
they were alone. 

“ O Ethel, I can trust you. Can you do it 
for me? I can’t move. Are you strong 
enough to go up to our room?” 

“ I think so, if it’s anything important, 
though I’ve not tried a stair yet.” 

“ No, you can’t. I mustn’t ask you. I 
can go myself.” 

“ You certainly shall not go. I can go 
quite well. But what is it? ” 

“ Well, I think it is inside the red blotting- 
book on my writing-table.” 

“ But what? ” 


1 64 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


“ The letter.” 

“ What letter? ” 

“ O — a letter addressed to Sir George 
Hessle.” 

“ Do you want it posted, or sent, or 
what? ” 

“ No, Ethel,” said Margaret violently, “ I 
want it here — in my hands. Don’t let any 
one else get it. But, darling, you can’t,” 
she added. “ I really can go myself.” 

“ Lie still,” said Ethel. “ I can do it.” 

And seizing the opportunity when no one 
was near, Ethel, very slowly and in con- 
siderable weakness, crept up to the next 
story and entered the boudoir. She opened 
the blotting-book ; the letter was there, and 
she was just taking it when her father en- 
tered the room. 

“ Ethel,” he cried, “ why on earth are you 
up here? You’ll kill yourself. What’s that 
you’re doing? ” 

“ I was just getting something for Mar- 
garet.” 

“ Surely there are plenty of people in the 
house to get things for Margaret What is 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 165 

it? Let me see it. A letter? Whom is it 
to?” 

“ Margaret told me to give it only to her- 
self. IPs to Sir George Hessle.” 

The Colonel started. 

“ Ethel,” he said, “ I want to see that 
letter.” 

“ Father, I can’t. It’s Margey’s. She 
told me not to.” 

“ I will see it,” he said. She tried to keep 
it from him, but, of course, in her weak 
state, she could offer no physical resistance. 
He seized her fragile wrist, unclasped her 
delicate fingers, and got the letter. He read 
the address at a glance. 

“ It’s all right, Ethel,” he said to the pale, 
helpless girl. “I know about this letter, and 
I’ll see it’s sent off all right.” 

“ But it’s not to be sent off,” cried Ethel 
in despair. 

“ Who said that? ” 

“ Margaret.” 

For once the Colonel was wise and held 
his tongue. He felt the situation had be- 
come extremely delicate. After a minute 


1 66 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


he said to his daughter, in gentle tones, that 
she must go back and rest, and “ be as- 
sured/’ he added, “ this is all right.” He 
left the room without giving her time to 
answer. Soon after Ethel’s maid came up- 
stairs, sent by her father, who really feared 
for the physical effects of all this on his 
daughter, and the girl was helped down- 
stairs. 

But no earthly persuasion would make 
her go to her own room. She went in to 
Margaret, who was out of herself at her 
sister’s long absence, and told what had 
happened. 

Margaret acted on the instant. She sent 
for her father. He did not come. She sent 
again and again so insistently that at last 
Mrs. Crothers told him he must come or 
anything might happen. Then he came. 

“ I wish my letter,” said Margaret. 

“ It is posted,” said her father. 

“ It is not posted.” 

“ It is posted.” 

Margaret lay quite still. Her brow was 
drenched. Her lips were pressed tightly 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 167 

together. Her eyes were fire. But when 
she spoke, she spoke quite calmly. She 
called her maid. 

“ Hampton, ” she said very distinctly, but 
quietly, “ I want you at once, at once, to go 
over in the dogcart — John will drive you — 
to Trentham, and give a message to Sir 
George Hessle. Ask to see him himself. 
Say that I am ill, and that the letter he will 
receive by to-night's post was sent by mis- 
take, and that I beg him, as a most personal 
favor, to return it to me unopened. Now 
do this at once. If he is out, you must wait. 
If he is away from home, get his address. 
Can you do this exactly? ” 

“ Yes, miss,” said Hampton, and, while 
the Colonel was debating what to do, left 
the room. His first impulse — a man of his 
stamp thinks first of a physical solution of 
difficulties — was to follow her and prevent 
her going. But he realized he hardly could 
do that. Yet he felt that on no account 
must he let her go, and he was shut up to 
confess the truth to Margaret. 

When Colonel Crothers took the letter 


1 68 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


from Ethel, he really meant to post it. In- 
deed, he went out to give it to one of the 
gardeners to post. But he was essentially 
a coward. A coward will do a negative 
thing, but is often afraid to do a postive. 
The Colonel dared to burn Arnold’s letter 
— to end something; but he did not dare 
to post this one — to begin the set of conse- 
quences that would arise from sending, 
against her will, Margaret’s acceptance of 
Sir George. But, of course, he had no hesi- 
tation in saying he had done it. 

Now he must even unsay that. 

“ Margaret,” he muttered. 

She took no notice. 

“ You can call her back.” 

She still took no notice. 

“ The letter is not posted,” he said at 
last. 

“ Where is it? ” she answered curtly. 

“ I have it.” 

“ Give it me.” 

“ What will you do with it? ” 

“ Give it me,” she repeated. 

The Colonel hesitated. 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 169 

“ Hampton is just going oil'," said Mar- 
garet. 

He hesitated no longer. He took the letter 
out of his breast-pocket and threw it on the 
bed. Margaret took it up, saw that it had 
not been tampered with, then rang the bell 
again and countermanded her order to the 
surprised Hampton, who was already bon- 
neted. 

“ Wait a minute,” said Margaret as the 
maid was leaving again. “ Will you fill that 
saucer with eau-de-Cologne and put it here 
on the table beside me? Now light it.” 
Hampton did as she was bid and then left 
the room. 

Very deliberately Margaret half tore the 
letter, and then threw it upon the burning 
spirit. Her father, mother and sister were 
there, and stood round in silence. No one 
said a word. They all gazed, as if fas- 
cinated, on the bright, dancing light. The 
scent spread through the room. The whole 
thing had the air of a solemn rite — a kind 
of act of purification. 

At last it was finished. The letter was 


iyo LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

quite burned. The flame gave one or two 
last leaps and died. Only the refreshing 
odor remained. Margaret sank back on her 
pillow. 

a Now I shall rest,” she said, and they 
all left her. 

“ It was her acceptance of Sir George? ” 
said Mrs. Crothers interrogatively to her 
husband as they went downstairs. 

“ Yes,” he replied. 

“ Then, after all, that’s ended.” 

He did not answer. He did not dare to 
think whether it was ended or not. He had 
an uncomfortable inkling of the truth that 
a deed is not something done but something 
begun. The morning’s paper would show. 
It was possible his fatuously impetuous 
communication was too late for that day 
and, if so, there was time to prevent it 
going further. But if it were in — the Col- 
onel was in a heat and a shiver as he reached 
his room. 

Johnson was just coming in with the post- 
bag. He took away a paper and some letters 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 171 


for the ladies, and left his master’s budget 
on the table. 

The Colonel feverishly tore open the Tele- 
graph. 

It was there — so coldly and distinctly as 
if it were out of the question that it should 
not be there. 

He read it in a kind of stupor. 

“ A marriage has been arranged between Sir 
George Hessle, Bart., of Trentham, Bucks., and 
Margaret, daughter of Colonel Crotbers of Broad- 
fields, Bilkeley.” 

The paper lay on the Colonel’s knee. He 
thought of the thousands that would read 
it. He thought of Sir George reading it. 
Then he thought of that unsent, burnt 
letter. Then of another burnt letter. Then 
of his debts. Then he began to think of 
what lies he could invent to get out of it all ; 
but there was simply nothing to be said. 
In a vague, indeterminate way, his thoughts 
wandered to pistols and poisons. He 
realized a little his contemptibleness in that 


17 2 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


he dared not follow these last thoughts far. 
He felt he was further off from manhood 
than when he was a subaltern. 

Suddenly the door opened and Mrs. Croth- 
ers almost rushed in. She was excited as 
he had never known her to be. She had an- 
other paper in her hand. 

“ Gerald,” she cried, “ have you seen this 
about Sir George? What does it mean?” 

“ I sent it,” he answered hopelessly. 

“ You sent what? ” 

“ The notice about the engagement. I 
thought, of course, Margaret had written 
him, and the thing was settled.” 

“ But I don’t understand. You can’t have 
sent this notice.” 

“ I wish I hadn’t, but I did.” 

“ But what do you know about the Mel- 
chesters? ” 

“ The Melchesters? ” The Colonel was 
dazed. “ Who was talking about the Mel- 
chesters? ” 

“ I thought you said you had read the 
notice? ” 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 173 

“ I’ve read the notice I sent to the Tele- 
graph about Hessle and Margaret.” 

“ About Margaret! Gerald, what have 
you done? Let me see the Telegraph” 

He handed his wife the paper. She read 
the paragraph, and sank down in a chair. 

“ O Gerald ! ” she gasped. “ This is 
awful ! ” 

“ Isn’t that what you had read?” he 
asked. 

“ No,” she murmured faintly. “ Eve got 
the Post. Read that.” And she feebly put 
into his hands the other paper. The fol- 
lowing intimation in it was marked, and 
caught his eye: — 

“ We are informed that a marriage has been ar- 
ranged, and will shortly take place, between Sir 
George Hessle, Bart., of Trentham Hall, Bucks., 
the Conservative candidate for the county, and Lady 
Mary Melton, second daughter of the Earl of Mel- 
chester.” 

The room seemed to spin round and 
round. The universe appeared to be stand- 
ing on its head. Colonel and Mrs. Crothers 


174 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


sat gazing at their papers in absolute stupe- 
faction. 

“ What does it all mean?” she said at 
last. 

“ Whatever it means, it means simple 
ruination to me,” said her husband, whose 
thoughts had never left himself. “ There’s 
no use talking about it.” He got up and 
fumblingly tried to fill a pipe. 

A knock came to the door; it was Mar- 
garet’s maid. “ Miss Crothers wishes you 
to see this letter, ma’am,” she said, giving 
Mrs. Crothers a note. Obviously Margaret 
had opened it and read it, but she had sealed 
it again with a splash of wax before sending 
it down. Mrs. Crothers reopened it, and 
read it to her husband. It was dated from 
Melchester Castle, and ran as follows : — 

“Dear Miss Crothers, — As I have received no 
reply to the letter which I addressed to you eight 
days ago, I have taken your silence to mean a nega- 
tive. But as that letter still remains in your posses- 
sion, I feel it to be necessary and only just, both 
to myself and you, to withdraw it by informing you 
that I have to-day become engaged to Lady Mary 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 175 

Melton. I feel it right that, in the circumstances, 
you should learn this directly rather than in any 
other way, and I have no doubt you will think it 
proper on your part to destroy my letter of the 4th 
inst. — I am, yours faithfully, 

George II. Hessle.” 

And so the affair between Hessle and 
Margaret ended. She destroyed his letter. 
The Colonel wrote an abject apology — 
which the baronet never acknowledged — 
and went up to the newspaper office, where, 
after a stormy scene, a paragraph was con- 
cocted expressing “ sincere regret at the an- 
nouncement made yesterday, in entire error, 
though not inserted in our columns without 
due authentication.” Lord Melchester pre- 
vented his future son-in-law from taking any 
notice of the matter, but it kept the gossips 
and scandalmongers going for many a day. 
One of the lower-class evening papers pub- 
lished the two paragraphs in parallel 
columns, and along with them a form of 
congratulation to the baronet, inserting 
both ladies’ names, one over the other, and 
subjoining a footnote directing the sender of 


176 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

the congratulation, after the manner of 
ordering one of the alternative bindings of 
an encyclopaedia, to delete one of the names. 
Another paper said that it was rumored that 
a Conservative baronet, dissatisfied with the 
conventional crimes of civilization, was 
about to be arraigned on a new charge — 
that of intent to commit bigamy. The sorry 
jests went on for a while to the grave dis- 
comfort of the persons immediately con- 
cerned. 

What stopped them was the death of 
Colonel Crothers. He was on his deathbed 
for more than a week, and during all that 
time, till just the very end, he preserved the 
most dogged silence. Neither his wife nor 
his daughters, the parson nor the doctor, 
could get a word from him. Several times 
he seemed about to speak ; then he restrained 
himself and turned his back without saying 
anything. They thought it was a personal 
anxiety about his own soul that troubled 
him, but when the rector asked him about 
that he shook his head. For once the Col- 
onel’s thoughts were not selfish. It was his 


THE COLONEL APOLOGIZES 177 

wife who had had an unfaithful husband, 
the dying man was thinking of, and his 
family who had had a base father; he was 
tormented to know whether he should con- 
fess it all before he died. In one view, it 
seemed he must ; and yet, in another, was it 
not but to create for them new sorrow and 
shame? “ Try what repentance can, what 
can it not? ” Colonel Crothers was seeing 
how true it is that when temptation first 
comes to a man, he is offered the simple 
choice of good or evil; but, after evil is 
yielded to, then he finds this among the con- 
sequences of wrong-doing — that even though 
he be repentant, there is offered no longer 
that simple alternative, but only a choice of 
courses, no one of which is free from ele- 
ments of evil to himself and others. He saw 
it all and much more — dying! 

One evening, when only the family were 
in the room, he suddenly raised himself and 
looked at them intently. After some mo- 
ments of painful stillness, he said, in a 
choked, husky voice: “ I want to beg your 
pardon.” His wife and Margaret took his 


178 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

hands ; he had not held them out, but, with 
a timid glance, he returned the pressure. 
Then he was gone. 

May Another, too, have accepted that 
apology and laid a loving hand upon that 
soul falling headlong from the little ledge 
of time into the great abyss! 


PART TWO 



A YEAR AFTER: THE STORY 
ENDS WITH MUSIC 

[Scene. The conservatory in Mrs. Walmer's house 
in London. A reception going on. Music by a 
band , and conversation. Enter two young men , 
meeting.'] 

1st Y. M. Hallo! You here, old man? 

2nd Y. M. You here? I thought you never 
went out. 

1st Y. M. Everybody seemed coming here 
to-night. 

2nd Y. M. Seems to me there’s only one 
man here. The rest of us might as well 
be at home. I object to these one-horse 
shows. 

1st Y. M. Who’s the one man? 

2nd Y. M. Who’s the one man? Why, that 
Arnold Hamilton, of course. 

1st Y. M. Who’s he? 

181 


1 82 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


2nd Y. M. Who’s he? Where do you live? 

1st Y. M. In bed chiefly. 

2nd Y. M. And asleep apparently. Do you 
ever get up to go to the Academy? 

1st Y. M. Never think of such a thing. 

2nd Y. M. Well, Hamilton’s the chap that’s 
painted the picture that everybody’s rav- 
ing about. It’s the picture of years, they 
say. I hear the Luxembourg’s picked it 
up already. 

1st Y. M. Oh. Must look at him. Where 
is he? 

2nd Y. M. Well, you can hardly get a look 
at him for the mob round about him. He 
was in the music-room a minute ago, quite 
near Edward Langton. 

1st Y. M. Is Langton here? You mean the 
beggar that licked Hessle last election in 
Bucks. I should like to see him too. 
What’s he like? 

2nd Y. M. Best-looking man in the room. 
Dark eyes and moustaches. 

1st Y. M. He’s too lucky a dog that. Got 
his fiancde with him? 

2nd Y. M. I believe so. 

1st Y. M. Well, although I am a Conserva- 


A YEAR AFTER 183 

tive, I didn’t mind his cutting out Hessle. 

Hessle’s a poop. But 

2nd Y. M. But you did mind his cutting you 
out with the fair Ethel. He did a double 
event that month certainly. Why don’t 
you stick in for the other one? 

1st Y. M. The other what? 

2nd Y. M. The other Crothers. 

1st Y. M. I’m afraid of a premature dis- 
closure in the papers. 

2nd Y. M. Drop it now. That story’s done. 
But she’s a long sight too good for you. 
Besides, your tie’s crumpled. 

1st Y. M. My dear boy, your eyes are green. 
2nd Y. M. Not I. Go in and win. 

1st Y. M. Go in where? 

2nd Y. M. Go and talk to the engaging and 
disengaged Miss Crothers. 

1st Y. M. Is she here? I thought she hadn’t 
been visible all the season. 

2nd Y. M. Well, of course they’ve been liv- 
ing quietly; it’s only a year since their 
father died. But she’s certainly here to- 
• night. 'So don’t lose your chance. 

Straighten your tie though. 

1ST Y. M. Will you shut 


1 84 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

2nd Y. M. Hush ! here are some people. 
[1st Y. M. adjusts his tie. Enter Mrs. 
Walmer and two young American 
girls.] 

1st Y. A. G. Of course I’ve been. I’ve been 
eight times to see it. It’s quite the sweet- 
est thing that ever happened. I must get 
introduced. Mrs. Walmer you will, won’t 
you? I want him to write in my confes- 
sion-album. 

Mrs. Walmer. Certainly, dear, if I get a 
chance. It’s difficult to get hold of him. 

2nd Y. A. G. And me too, please. I want 
one of his paint-brushes. 

Mrs. Walmer. Well, keep in sight and I’ll 
do my best for you. Ah [to the two Y. 
M.], you two really must not stay out 
here all the evening. I want to introduce 
you to the Miss Rudds from New York. 
Will you take them in to supper? 

[They all go out , Mrs. Walmer making 
the introductions. Immediately re - 
enter Mrs. Walmer, and, from the 
other side, enter Edward Langton, M. 
P., and Ethel Crothers.] 


A YEAR AFTER 


185 

Mrs. Walmer. I thought I saw you dear 
young people coming, so I’ve cleared the 
conservatory for you to have a chat. Are 
you tired of people congratulating you? 

Ethel. Fm tired of people saying to me 
they “ hope ” I shall be happy. They 
ought to know I shall be. 

Mrs. Walmer [approvingly']. That’s the 
way. Yes, I think you two will do. Mr. 
Langton, I hope you know that you are 
engaged to a girl worth doing anything 
for. 

Ethel. Oh, really! I’m going to look at 
these flowers. [She walks aimy.] 

Edward. I know it. Then will you do 
something for her just now, Mrs. Walmer? 

Mrs. Walmer. What’s that? 

Edward. I wonder if you could get Arnold 
Hamilton to come out here. I want him 
and Ethel to meet each other. 

Mrs. Walmer. I thought you and he were 
old friends. 

Edward. Yes; so we are. But I can’t get 
hold of him. 

Mrs. Walmer. Neither can any one appar- 


1 86 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


ently. You’ve known him a long time, 
haven’t you? Well, don’t you think he’s 
looking ever so much better than he used 
to? His winter in Egypt seems to have 
made a new man of him. 

Edward. Oh, it’s simply marvelous. I can’t 
understand it. I saw him just for a day 
or two in Switzerland just a year ago — 
exactly the time I believe when Ethel was 
so ill — and he looked absolutely miser- 
able. And now he’s the very picture of 
strength. 

Mrs. Walmer. Then his anxiety about his 
health has all passed away, has it? 

Edward. So I believe. Certainly he seems 
free from all anxiety. It was rather an 
original treatment he gave himself. 

Mrs. Walmer. What treatment did he give 
himself? 

Edward. Well, I mean his cutting himself 
off from everybody for nearly a year. 

Mrs. Walmer. He went up the Nile, didn’t 
he? 

Edward. Yes, he got a pass up to Khartum, 
and went on further even than that, I 


A YEAR AFTER 


187 


believe. None of us had a single scrap 
from him, and he left no address after 
Cairo. We began to call him “ Waring.” 

Mrs. Walmer. Really. I didn’t know he 
had cut himself off like that. 

Edward. Cut himself off entirely. He be- 
lieved, for example, that it was Margaret 
that Sir George Hessle married. 

Mrs. Walmer. Ah! [To herself .] That 
explains ! 

Edward. Well, anyhow it suited him. He’s 
twice the man he was. 

Mrs. Walmer. Yes; and don’t you think 
that it isn’t only physically that he’s 
stronger? 

Edward. I know what you mean. 

Mrs. Walmer. There’s something bigger 
and truer and tenderer too about the 
whole man — at least I feel it. 

Edward. We all feel it. And his work 
shows it. This furore about his picture is 
not for nothing. 

Mrs. Walmer. I am so glad to hear you say 
that. 

Edward. I remember when we were at 


1 88 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


Heidelberg together, as students, his fa- 
vorite quotation in his better moods — 
sometimes he was an utter cynic — was 
that verse — 

“ He either fears his fate too much. 

Or his deserts are small. 

Who will not put it to the touch 
To gain or lose it all.” 

It was an expression of his — “ the touch ” 
of so and so’s life. Well, I can’t help feel- 
ing that Hamilton, somehow — I don’t 
know where or in what respect — has dared 
to put his life to some touch and has 
gained it. 

Mrs. Walmer. Yes, I think so too. And 
there’s more than that. He has some- 
thing he never used to have. Was he not 
more or less of an Agnostic? 

Edward. Well, he never said very much 
about that. He is not an Agnostic now. 

Mrs. Walmer. He is not, you say? 

Edward. Certainly he is not. Only the 
other night, I heard him say that there 
are two ways of describing and defend- 
ing religion — one by reasoning about his- 


A YEAR AFTER 


189 


tory and doctrine, the other by reading 
life ; and he added, what utterly surprised 
me, that he remained an artist, and had 
not gone into the Church, because he 
could not state or argue for Christianity 
dogmatically, but only by trying to inter- 
pret life and nature. 

Mrs. Walmer. Did he really say that? 
After all, there is only one Truth — surely 
we Christians should say that most of all. 
I do feel about Arnold that he has kept 
true to the Truth as it appealed to him. 
That is “ the touch ” of his life — of any- 
body^ life. 

Edward. And so his “ deserts are” not 
“ small.” 

Ethel [who had been round the conserva- 
tory, and now returned]. I hope you’re 
not talking still about my deserts. Any- 
how, sir, you don’t seem to think I de- 
serve to be talked to! 

Mrs. Walmer. It’s been my fault, Ethel. 
I’m getting garrulous with my advancing 
years. But I’m going to leave you for a 
chat now. 


1 9 o LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Ethel. And now, somebody’s coming. 

Edward. It’s Arnold. 

[Enter Arnold Hamilton.] 

Mrs. Walmer. Come away, Mr. Hamilton ; 
we’ve just been talking of you. Mr. Lang- 
ton has been telling me of the days when 
you and he were at Heidelberg together. 

Arnold. “ Die schonen Tage in Aranjuez ” 

Mrs. Walmer. “ — sind nun zu Ende” 
Perhaps you would like life to be all 
Heidelberg? 

Arnold. No, no. There’s a time to play. 
It’s a glorious time, but it becomes con- 
temptible when it’s belated. 

Edward. I think I must quote “ Youth ” 
to Mrs. Walmer. 

Arnold. “ Youth? ” Oh, I know what you 
mean. Don’t be foolish. 

Mrs. Walmer. But what is “ Youth?” Is 
it a poem? 

Arnold. It is certainly not a poem. 

Edward. Well, it is verse. It is half a 
dozen lines Mr. Hamilton gave us one 
night after his farewell kneipe. 

Ethel. Tell us them, Edward. 


A YEAR AFTER 


191 

Edward [to Arnold]. Shall I? 

Mrs. Walmer [to Edward] . Don’t ask him, 
but just go on. 

Edward. Well, this is it— 


“ Drink out your glass, then turn it o’er; 

He who would life’s first vintage store, 

Finds it unfit and rank; 

Yet may he hang upon the wall 
Of memory where his eyes -oft fall, 

The goblet whence the drank.” 

Arnold. Mrs. Walmer, will you tell Mr. 
Langton to go away? He is becoming 
a bore. 

Mrs. Walmer. We are much obliged to Mr. 
Langton, and to the author too. [A serv- 
ant enters, gives a message to Mrs. 
Walmer, and goes out.] But I’m afraid 
I must go away; I’m leaving the rest of 
my guests too long. 

Edward [to whom Ethel has said some- 
thing aside]. Certainly. Hamilton, I 
want to introduce you to my fiancde. 

Arnold [somewhat embarrassed] . With 
pleasure. 


i 9 2 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Edward. Mr. Hamilton — Miss Ethel Croth- 
ers. 

Mrs. Walmbr. Well, Mr. Langton, shall 
we leave them a few minutes? I must 
go back to the drawing-room. I hear the 
Dean has come, and I know he wants to 
meet you; so if you will come with me, 
I can introduce you to him. 

Edward. Very well. [To Ethel.] I shall 
be back as soon as I can. 

[Mrs. Walmer and Langton go out . A 
rather awkward pause between Arnold 
and Ethel.] 

Ethel. I have so often heard Edward speak 
of you. 

Arnold. Well, I can only say of him that 
he’s the very best fellow in the world. 
May I congratulate you both? I don’t 
need to wish you happiness, for you’ve 
got it. 

Ethel [smiling assent ]. Thanks. You 
were abroad together, weren’t you? 

Arnold. In Heidelberg? Oh, that was 
years ago. 


A YEAR AFTER 


*93 

Ethel. But I thought he met you in Swit- 
zerland last year. 

Arnold. Yes, he did. For a day. 

Ethel. That was at Rosenwald, wasn’t it? 

Arnold. Yes. [A pause.] Have you been 
there? 

Ethel. No. My sister was there last year. 
She left immediately before Edward ar- 
rived, I think. But, of course, I did not 
know anything about him then. I tell my 
sister and Edward that if she hadn’t left 
before he came, they would have fallen 
in love with one another, and I should 
never have been in it. Oh, but I forgot 
that you don’t know my sister; do you? 
[Arnold, instead of answering , stoops to 
pick up a leaf from the floor. A pause 
again: it makes Ethel uncomfortable.] 

Arnold. Are you cold here? Should we 
not go in? 

Ethel. I am not at all cold, thank you. 
But if you would rather 

Arnold. No, not at all. Let me see; what 
were we talking about? 


194 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

Ethel. We were talking about Rosenwald. 

Arnold [shortly]. Ah, yes. [ Another 

pause.] 

Ethel [in desperation] . You must be tired, 
Mr. Hamilton, of hearing people praise 
your picture. 

Arnold. It depends upon the people. 

Ethel [gaily]. That is embarrassing. I 
was just going to ask you to let me thank 
you for it. 

Arnold. You are very kind. 

Ethel. You must be very happy. To speak 
to so many people — it’s a splendid thing. 

Arnold. If it says anything ! 

Ethel. It says more than I can tell you to 
me, and, I know, both to Edward and to 
my sister too. “ Art was meant for that ! ” 
[With animation.] 

Arnold. Yes, yes. But you are speaking 
far too generously to me, Miss Crothers. 

Ethel. Fm not Miss Crothers. I wish my 
sister was here. She can speak about 
these things. I must get you to meet each 
other. [Another longer pause. At last , 
to Ethel^s great relief, Edward enters.] 


A YEAR AFTER 


195 


Edward. I’m thankful to get back. Some 
anti-vaccination person has been pursu- 
ing me ever since I left. 

Ethel. Poor boy! But, Edward, do you 
know where Margey is? 

Edward. I saw her in the anteroom this 
moment. 

Ethel. Oh, do go and tell her to come here. 
I want to introduce her to Mr. Hamilton. 
But [aside, earnestly ], Edward, don’t be 
away more than one minute. 

Edward. It’s a risk; that man will be 
hovering about still. But I’ll do it. 

[Edward goes out . Another pause.] 

Arnold. I beg your pardon, but I’m afraid 
— in fact I — er — promised to go back to 
meet some one in the drawing-room. You 
must be so kind as to excuse my leaving 

whenever — er — your 

[Enter Edward and Margaret. Ethel 
runs to meet her sister. Arnold slips 
out.] 

Ethel. Oh, Margey, here’s Mr. Arnold 
Hamilton. Where is he? Well, Edward, 
I think your friend is the queerest-man- 


196 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 

nered mortal that ever was made. He 
stuck in the conversation every half- 
minute, and made me quite uncomfort- 
able. He may be a great man and all the 
rest of it, but I don’t want you to leave 
me alone with him again. Will you tell 
him to come back? [Edward goes out 
after Arnold.] But, Margey, what’s the 
matter? You’re as pale as a ghost. 

Margaret. Nothing, dear. 

Ethel. There is something. Why did Mr. 
Hamilton go off like that? Have you met 
him before? 

Margaret [ reluctantly ] . He was at Rosen- 
wald when Aunt Elizabeth and I were 
there — I think. That’s the only time I’ve 
seen him. 

Ethel. You knew him there? 

Margaret. We — knew each other in the 
hotel. 

Ethel. Why did he not tell me that? We 
were speaking of Rosenwald and of you 
being there. And why wouldn’t he stay 
to meet you again? Margey, you can’t 
keep this from me. I know now! 


A YEAR AFTER 


*97 


Margaret. Know what, darling? What 
are you talking about? Let us go in to 
the drawing-room. 

Ethel. I knew at the time you were ill, 
the time when you burnt that letter, that 
there was something particular that kept 
you from marrying Sir George Hessle. 
Margaret. Ethel ! 

Ethel. And I know now why. I under- 
stand it now. My darling Margey, it will 
be all right ! I am so sure of that ! 

[She kisses Margaret. A young man ap- 
pears at the door, cries “ Good 
heavens !” and retires .] 

Margaret. Ethel, you mustn’t. There are 
people about. 

[Re-enter Edward.] 

Edward. He won’t come. 

Ethel. But he shall come. 

[Ethel goes out. Margaret sinks down 
in a chair, and closes her eyes.] 

Edward. Are you ill, Margaret? Shall I 
get you a glass of wine? 

[She seems to indicate assent, and he goes 
out. The music of the band is heard 


198 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


more distinctly ; it is playing a Hun- 
garian raise. Margaret listens with 
an air of recognition. In a little she 
hears voices approaching , and , hastily 
rising , goes out. Enter , by another 
door , Arnold and Ethel.] 

Ethel. There’s no one here! Mr. Hamil- 
ton, I brought my sister to you, and you 
disappeared ; I bring you to her, and she 
disappears. I did not know you were such 
friends ! 

Arnold. Do people play hide-and-seek when 
they have been friends? 

Ethel. Perhaps we can discuss that again. 
At present, Mr. Hamilton, will you prom- 
ise to stay here — inside that square of red 
marble? I trust you. 

[Enter Edward with a glass of wine.] 

Edward. Is Margaret not here? 

Ethel. I’m just going to her. What’s that 
wine for? [Edward and Ethel go out , 
talking. Arnold sits down. The music 
arrests his attention , and he listens 
alertly.] 

Arnold [to himself]. It is the same valse! 


A YEAR AFTER 


199 


How it brings back the place! Well, this 
is kismet; but — is it her cruelty or her 
mercy? 

[He leans back in a reverie with closed 
eyes. The two young American girls 
appear at the door.] 

1st Y. A. G. Now’s the chance to speak to 
him. Go on ! 

2nd Y. A. G. You go on! 

1st Y. A. G. Well, both of us. 

[They approach. Arnold suddenly opens 
his eyes. The younger girl runs out. 
Then , enter Mrs. Walmer.] 

Mrs. Walmer. What is the matter? 

Arnold. I’m afraid I startled these young 
ladies. Probably they hadn’t noticed I 
was here. I am very sorry. 

Mrs. Walmer [laughing]. Well, if they 
didn’t notice you, it wasn’t from failing 
to look for you all evening. 

1st Y. A. G. Mrs. Walmer, you promised. 

Mrs. Walmer. Very well, then. Mr. Ham- 
ilton, this is Miss Rudd from New York, 
and she’s very anxious you should write 
something in her — what is it, dear? 


200 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


1st Y. A. G. Confession-album. Here it is, 
and I’ve got a stylograph pen. [ She pulls 
out a book and pen.] 

Mrs. Walmer. But Mr. Hamilton really 
cannot write out a list of answers just 
now. 

1st Y. A. G. Only one answer then. Will 
you write an answer to one question 
please, Mr. Hamilton? 

Arnold. Well, what is the question? 

1st Y. A. G. [ Giving him the book and pen.] 
That one please. 

Arnold [reading.] “ What is your favorite 
quality in woman?” Very well. [He 
writes something and hands back the book 
and pen.] 

1st Y. A. G. [reading.] u Das ewig Weib- 
liche.” But won’t you explain what or 
who 

Arnold. You ask a volume. 

1st Y. A. G. No; a name would be enough. 

Arnold [shortly]. I must be excused. 

Mrs. Walmer. Now, dear, you’ve really got 
Mr. Hamilton to do what you wanted, and 
it is not fair to ask more. [The Y. A. G. 


A YEAR AFTER 


201 


thanks Arnold, and goes out.] I hope 
you haven’t minded this, Mr. Hamilton, 
but really you deserve some punishment 
for immuring yourself here all the eve- 
ning. Remember everybody wants to 
meet you. 

Arnold. Well, I’ve promised to stay within 
this marble square till Miss Ethel Croth- 
ers comes back. 

Mrs. Walmer. Where has she gone to? 

Arnold. To find some one, I think. 

Mrs. Walmer. Who? 

Arnold. Well — her sister, I believe. 

Mrs. Walmer [after a pause]. Mr. Hamil- 
ton, will you let me say something to you? 
I think I am Miss Crothers’ closest friend, 
and, though I have not known you very 
long, you have let me be a kind of mother 
to you sometimes. 

Arnold. You may say anything to me ex- 
cept one thing. 

Mrs. Walmer. What is that? 

Arnold. “ Mr. Hamilton.” 

Mrs. Walmer. What do you mean exactly? 

Arnold. I mean that there is not a woman 


202 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


living who can call me Arnold. Will 
you? 

Mrs. Walmer. Willingly. 

Arnold. Thank you. And now, what were 
you going to say to me? 

Mrs. Walmer. Well, I shall say it now in 
this form. There is no reason, except in 
yourself, why I should be the only woman 
who calls you Arnold. You must do jus- 
tice to yourself — and not only yourself. 
Remember, too, there are circumstances 
in which it is far more difficult for a 
woman to say anything than a man. [Ar- 
nold looks at her, hut does not answer.] 
You do not misunderstand me? 

Arnold [ after a pause]. She has spoken to 
you about it. 

Mrs. Walmer. Once — in answer to a ques- 
tion from me. The person from whom I 
got any information was, perhaps, hardly 
your best friend — Miss Coryn. But I 
gathered that she — I don’t mean Miss 
Coryn ! — and you should 

Arnold. Should? 


A YEAR AFTER 


203 

Mrs. Walmer. Should — well, have things 
cleared up. Meet, or write, or 

Arnold [quickly]. I wrote. 

Mrs. Walmer. You wrote? 

Arnold. Yes. 

Mrs. Walmer. She never got it. That is 
the one thing I know from herself. It 
was just that- — just that she never heard 
a word of or from you after you parted. 
Mr. Hamilton — Arnold, I mean — I don’t 
want to be a busybody in this, but (I 
hear some people coming) you will let me 
say: unless you regard it as ended — if 
that is not your thought — you will clear 
it up? 

[Arnold looks at her again and assents. 

Enter Edward, Margaret, and Ethel.] 

Edward. We’ve just been looking for you, 
Mrs. Walmer. 

Mrs. Walmer. And I just want you. I 
want Ethel and you to meet some par- 
ticular friends of mine. Will you come 
with me back to the drawing-room? Ar- 
nold, I shall give you a little grace, but 


204 LOVE NEVER FAILETH 


you must put in an appearance sometime. 
Margaret, you know Mr. Hamilton; per- 
haps he will take you in to supper when 
you wish. 

Edward [to Ethel]. I think this is simply 
putting them in a deadly fix, Ethel. 

Ethel [to Edward]. Oh, women know 
about these things ! 

[Mrs. Walmer, Edward, and Ethel go 
out. The band is still playing the Hun- 
garian valse.] 

Arnold. You recognize the music? 

Margaret. Yes. 

Arnold. Then you remember Rosen wald? 

Margaret [in a lower voice']. Yes. 

Arnold. I have remembered it, I think, 
every day of my life since I was there. 
And, if I thought of it, that was in order 
to think of you — [she makes no answer , 
but looks down; he continues] — of you 
as the light of my life. 

Margaret [almost inaudibly]. A “light 
that failed.” 

Arnold. Love never faileth! 


A YEAR AFTER 


205 


[She looks up. Their eyes meet. He takes 
her hands; then draws one through his 
arm. They go to the garden door , and 
he throws it open. They pass out into 
a veranda. The hand plays the Hun - 
garian raise more loudly .] 

THE END 


(OF THE BEGINNING) 


ENVOY 


" Love never faileth — a sweet refrain ! 

And your tale may be true for you; 

But how many there that have loved in vain. 

And their hearts had never their due; 

Have you thought what the breath of insolent death 
Or the malice of fate can do ? ” 

How the flower of the heart is to fulness grown 
May be more than this life can show; 

The bringing to bloom is of God alone. 

And the time for it He must know; 

His is the hour of the perfected flower. 

Yours is the seed to sow. 


206 


* 






APR 2 4 



u. 


Attt. 







APR. 30 1902 





























































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